Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I just want to code (2023)

zachbellay.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 183 posts

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#81

Post by ludicrousdispla »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #22
cortesoft wrote: post #15

Am I the only coder who has never really felt the desire to "be my own boss" and get rich from coding? I was so against the idea, actually, that I avoided majoring in CS because I didn't want to ruin my favorite hobby by doing it professionally. It wasn't until a few years after I graduated with my philosophy degree and couldn't find a career that I decided to try writing code for a living. It's been great for me for…

Speaking only for myself, I never wanted to be rich. It would have been nice to have the money, but I never wanted to make the sacrifices necessary. I also didn't want to be used by some predator, to make them rich. I found a [less-than-perfect, but OK] company to work for, that had values I liked, and stayed there, for a long time. I got to hang with the really cool kids . I mean the ones that were so cool, no one k…

I'm wondering what a "shower clause" would be in a contract and hoping it's not a Silkwood reference.

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#82

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

riehwvfbk wrote: post #72
cortesoft wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that on a normal salary, too.

But only if you get incredibly lucky. Even in the Bay Area where many an employee became a millionaire the chance of that being you is still a single digit percentage.

Not just luck. Self-discipline, structure, and sacrifice are necessary.

Living frugally, deferring (or avoiding) purchases, saving a substantial percentage, etc., was important for me.

Also, the world around us, changes.

In my entire career, I never made more than what some kids make, coming right out of school, these days.

The same for my father. He never made more than about $50K, his entire life, yet had a half-acre house in Potomac, two cars, and a stay-at-home wife.

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#83

Post by p0nce »

stepbeek wrote: post #61
alkonaut wrote: post #59

Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs? What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?

I had my own company previously and I found it hard to detangle that commercial mindset from hobby coding. I’m employed now and find it much easier to code purely for fun. If I played guitar professionally then I’d probably find it hard to not think about new pieces in the context of a gig-worthy repertoire.

This is real, anytime I code I'm obsessed about RoI

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#84

Post by baud147258 »

Juliate wrote: post #80
varjag wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, coding is universally at a premium compared to other trades. Naturally you wouldn't have a FAANG salary at an outsourcing farm overseas but it'll certainly provide you with comfortable living by local standards.

> coding is universally at a premium compared to other trades It has been and it still is at this time. Just saying that it won't last. The existential threat, and perpetual adaptation to technology musicians (classical as well as contemporary) have met since the invention of sound recording and its developments, is coming for software developers too.

> perpetual adaptation to technology musicians have met

Didn't it also went with an important reduction in the number of people who could make a living out of that?

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#85

Post by milquen »

…man never regards what he possesses as so much his own, as what he does; and the labourer who tends a garden is perhaps in a truer sense its owner, than the listless voluptuary who enjoys its fruits…In view of this consideration, it seems as if all peasants and craftsman might be elevated into artists; that is, men who love their labour for its own sake, improve it by their own plastic genius and inventive skill, and thereby cultivate their intellect, ennoble their character, and exalt and refine their pleasures. And so humanity would be ennobled by the very things which now, though beautiful in themselves, so often serve to degrade it…But, still, freedom is undoubtedly the indispensable condition, without which even the pursuits most congenial to individual human nature, can never succeed in producing such salutary influences. Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness…

…we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.

https://readmorestuff.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/extracts-from...

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#86

Post by gwd »

IvanK_net wrote: post #45

I have no idea why they mention coding. It is the same in any kind of job. You can bake cakes for fun, make music for fun, write poems, novels, play chess for fun, practice sports, grow potatos ... At a certain stage, you realize that in order to be able to do only that job, you must make someone pay you for it. You must do it in a way (or in a volume) which makes others happy. The fact that it makes you happy is not…

> I have no idea why they mention coding. It is the same in any kind of job. You can bake cakes for fun, make music for fun, write poems, novels, play chess for fun, practice sports, grow potatos ...

One reason is that coding is so much more scalable than all of those. There are loads of stories of people who made some small thing that was useful, and were able to make a tidy profit on it (or sometimes a fairly large one).

I enjoy making homemade wines. Occasionally someone will try something I've made and ask if I'm thinking about selling it professionally. No way -- it's a fun hobby, but definitely not something I want to do in enough scale to be self-supporting.

I also enjoy languages, and developed an algorithm for helping me find material to read that's at the right level -- only a handful of words that I don't know. It's been incredibly helpful for me, and I'm sure it could be incredibly helpful to millions of people out there as well; so I quit my job and am trying to figure out how to make that happen:

https://www.laleolanguage.com

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#87

Post by sethammons »

zeroc8 wrote: post #71
ramon156 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because having your own product is something that on paper sounds extremely rewarding. If you do it well, the maintenance might be less than the work you put in your actual job. Some people want to break out of the cycle, and you can't really blame them for it when the economy is hurting working people (ofcourse excluding that writing software is relative to other jobs a cushion job)

It's not a cushion job. At least not when you are working on a huge codebase together with lots of other developers.

What other jobs have you had? I have been a photo lab assistant, a sign maker apprentice, a graphic designer, an insurance agent, a financial advisor, a construction worker and manual laborer, an inner-city math teacher, a software developer turned manager turn developer, now at the staff level.

Software is the most cush job I have had. More money for less work. Better perks. Less stress overall. Constantly learning, yes. Often frustrating, yes. But having financial resources beyond what the other jobs could provide is a thing. Other jobs I could leave at work, sure, but others I couldn't. I would never go back to being a public high school teacher; that shit was the suck. So was selling stocks. Software is a dream in comparison.

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#89

Post by test1235 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #22
cortesoft wrote: post #15

Am I the only coder who has never really felt the desire to "be my own boss" and get rich from coding? I was so against the idea, actually, that I avoided majoring in CS because I didn't want to ruin my favorite hobby by doing it professionally. It wasn't until a few years after I graduated with my philosophy degree and couldn't find a career that I decided to try writing code for a living. It's been great for me for…

Speaking only for myself, I never wanted to be rich. It would have been nice to have the money, but I never wanted to make the sacrifices necessary. I also didn't want to be used by some predator, to make them rich. I found a [less-than-perfect, but OK] company to work for, that had values I liked, and stayed there, for a long time. I got to hang with the really cool kids . I mean the ones that were so cool, no one k…

> I didn't have a "shower clause" in my employment contract

what's a shower clause?

EDIT:

"That’s the clause that says your employer owns every idea that you come up with in the shower."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24585399

Re: I just want to code (2023)

#90

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #81
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking only for myself, I never wanted to be rich. It would have been nice to have the money, but I never wanted to make the sacrifices necessary. I also didn't want to be used by some predator, to make them rich. I found a [less-than-perfect, but OK] company to work for, that had values I liked, and stayed there, for a long time. I got to hang with the really cool kids . I mean the ones that were so cool, no one k…

I'm wondering what a "shower clause" would be in a contract and hoping it's not a Silkwood reference.

No. It's the clause that is common in tech contracts, where any idea that you come up with, "in the shower," belongs to the company.

It prevents things like moonlighting, or doing charity work.

I worked for a company that employed a lot of top-notch photographers, and there's no way that they would have agreed to anything like that.

Post reply on HN