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Ask HN: What inspires you about computing?
21–26 of 26 posts
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you about computing?
#22At the risk of geting downvoter I'll repeat again and again what I feel is the bitter truth. This is a pretty childish unprofessional approach to look for some _inspiration_. As if a job has the responsibility to make you happy and fix your personal issues. If an opportunity in modern economy to make a decent money is not enough an inspiration for you - no magic new shiny thing will inspire you for long.
I totally agree that a true professional approach is view it as a job rather than an creative or inspirational outlet in your life. And I follow this approach. I see it as a marathon rather than a sprint.
That said, posts like this are common on HN. People burning out and get disillusioned with their jobs. Or loose meaning in tech.
Could this be because 15-20 years ago in order to get in to the industry you had to have a certain passion and curiosity in order to get through the forest of very technical tools and programming languages in order to run anything. Industry was not mature and there was a lot of hype around it's wins, it was literally changing the world. Software was eating the world quickly. Books like "Passionate programmer" and "Secrets of the Rock Star Programmers" were promising us the land of endless rewards if we pour our whole selves in to the job and forget about anything else.
But nowadays, 20 years of growth, billions of LOC and millions of people came in to the industry. Now we've got the understanding that it was just a job after all. And instead of pouring your self in to it, the sustainable way is to treat it like a job and also have a life outside of it. Hedge your bets if you will, because life is more than tech
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you about computing?
#23At the risk of geting downvoter I'll repeat again and again what I feel is the bitter truth. This is a pretty childish unprofessional approach to look for some _inspiration_. As if a job has the responsibility to make you happy and fix your personal issues. If an opportunity in modern economy to make a decent money is not enough an inspiration for you - no magic new shiny thing will inspire you for long.
This isn't often discussed on here. If I speak to my friends who are accountants, lawyers, doctors they generally aren't that inspired by their work either. I tend to find managers are often quite enthusiastic about work, and I think that's because the personality type required to do that sort of thing requires that enthusiasm. The only other class of people who often seem pretty enthusiastic are university researchers, but times are not great for universities in the UK right now.
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you about computing?
#24At the risk of geting downvoter I'll repeat again and again what I feel is the bitter truth. This is a pretty childish unprofessional approach to look for some _inspiration_. As if a job has the responsibility to make you happy and fix your personal issues. If an opportunity in modern economy to make a decent money is not enough an inspiration for you - no magic new shiny thing will inspire you for long.
I totally agree that a true professional approach is view it as a job rather than an creative or inspirational outlet in your life. And I follow this approach. I see it as a marathon rather than a sprint. That said, posts like this are common on HN. People burning out and get disillusioned with their jobs. Or loose meaning in tech. Could this be because 15-20 years ago in order to get in to the industry you had to ha…
> Could this be because 15-20 years ago in order to get in to the industry you had to have a certain passion and curiosity in order to get through the forest of very technical tools and programming languages in order to run anything.
In 2010, you could choose a tech stack - .Net or Java and learn it well enough to get a full stack implementation done along with JavaScript and choose an RDMS. Not too much different than today. Today it’s worse with the clusterfuck of the front end ecosystem.
The iOS SDK was already mature and the Android SDK was getting mature
2005 was about the same. But then if you wanted to build a mobile app you either used whatever Java was doing or the Windows Compact Framework.
Even back in 2000 it wasn’t that bad.
I haven’t had “passion” for computer science since entering college and I was a hobbyist before then
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you about computing?
#25What is this innate need to have “passion” for a job?
I was a hobbyist programmer from 1986-1992 programming in Basic and assembly. But after that, it became a means to an end - to support my need for food, clothes and shelter while doing other things that I enjoyed. I went to college, enjoyed the college life and got my degree.
I spent 1998 - 2012, hanging out with friends, teaching fitness classes more as a social outlet than a second job, had a bad 4 year marriage in between.
I got remarried in 2012, stop teaching, started taking my career more seriously while raising a 9 and 14 year old (step sons) and when the youngest one graduated in 2020 and after COVID lifted, my wife and I hang out after work, we travel and she pursues her hobbies and I pursue mine.
There has never been one day that I thought “I can’t wait to get home after spending all day on computers to spend more time on my computer”
Re: Ask HN: What inspires you about computing?
#26Stupidity of mine