If you don't get paid to do something it's not fun, how about you just stop doing it?
The Rust project has a burnout problem
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Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#12Do other people react as strongly as I did to the lack of capitalisation at the start of sentences? The post is generally "well" written with good grammar and punctuation so I find it strange - it feels like a style choice. But the style choice just instinctively makes part of my brain feel like it's written by a child.
Yeah, I don't really have the patience to read through uncapitalised text for long. Enough blog posts around to skip some of them.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#13This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…
This generalises to any idealism. You would not think veterinarians to be at elevated risk of suicide, but they are [0], and I think the reasons are similar: a moral dilemma caused by the mismatch between expectation and grim reality which ultimately leads to burnout and desperation.
The other extreme is a "bullshit job", work that you don't enjoy and which serves no meaningful purpose.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231010-the-acute-suic...
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#14I think this is true of most open source projects, and probably all of the bigs ones.
Software in general has a burnout problem. I am regularly stumbling around like a zombie by friday afternoon, and that's just for my actual, paid job. If you added maintenance of a large open-source project like Rust ... I don't see how I would manage it, at least without letting my health -- and probably my family -- suffer for it.
I know that some people are fortunate enough to be paid for their open-source work, but that doesn't mitigate the burnout from software engineering itself. Add to that baseline stress the fact that your customer is "the internet" and feedback is often coming from "whoever is currently angriest," and it seems wildly unsustainable.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#15> new contributors make PRs. they make silly simple mistakes due to lack of experience; you point them out and they get fixed. this can be fun, for a time. what it’s teaching you is that you personally are responsible for catching mistakes. Every team I've worked with that was feeling exhausted about code contributions actually needed to focus on better documenting guidelines but most importantly, improve CI. Catchin…
I agree
At the same time lint tools sometimes move into the 'pedantic unhelpful' field because those things are the easiest to check (no, nobody likes pep8 and its brain-dead char limit - Black is much better)
But yes, if it can be automated it should be automated
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#16I see a trend in blogging to stop using capital letters - it makes it much harder to read. It's not even like they don't know how they work: > rotate responsibilities. don’t have the same person assigned to the majority of PRs.
i take it as an aesthetic move, like using weird monospace fonts... adds the writers personality to it
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#17> the best way to help the project is to keep contributing for it for years. to do that, you have to avoid burning out, which means you have to treat yourself well. When I was a schoolteacher, the way I expressed this is that you have to do the job in such a way today that you're capable of doing it again tomorrow. This did not go down well and I am no longer a teacher.
Personally, I don't think it is natural to sit in the same role for more than a few years. And that's not just the primary tasks of the job -- the same people, the same administration, the same bureaucracy. I do feel that virtually no jobs will allow you to grow as a person and enjoy life.
Here, by "job" I mean the traditional kind at a corporation or medium-sized organization. After seven years of working in such organizations I realized the only thing that was fulfilling was quitting and doing a bunch of random things like contracting, content-creation, and other passive income streams.
Of course, that may not be for everyone but I still think (after talking to hundreds of colleagues in various places) that after a while, most jobs suck. Sure, some of them pay well but then again, I personally feel that no amount of money is worth spending the best part of your youth doing mostly meaningless things. And, if the money IS good enough, it makes sense just to work for a decade and then retire early...
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#18Do other people react as strongly as I did to the lack of capitalisation at the start of sentences? The post is generally "well" written with good grammar and punctuation so I find it strange - it feels like a style choice. But the style choice just instinctively makes part of my brain feel like it's written by a child.
I hate it with a passion and would never read any text without capitalization.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#19This is a good description of what life is like working on almost any significant open source project. The only thing not included was the comments from overly entitled users that saps whatever morale and energy you have left. Probably best he did not include that though as that is what all discussion would be about. I am not sure what to do about the burnout problem. The way he described it is very on point though.…
Not only open source. Also anyone taking ownership in companies end up like that. The difference is: The person gets paid and is ideally not emotional involved.
It is a fair point, but I think your last sentence hits on the problem. People that contribute regularly to OSS projects are nearly always emotionally invested. It brings a lot of pleasure initially which I think also contributes to the eventual burnout.
These are hard problems.
Re: The Rust project has a burnout problem
#20If you don't get paid to do something it's not fun, how about you just stop doing it?
it's not that simple. people form an emotional attachment to the work; they feel obligated to keep doing it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39027226