For me:
Life: deciding that I wanted to take care of my body.
Programming: deciding that I wanted to master 1 new tool and a language every year. Last year was Python/Emacs and this year it is Rust/DTrace.
Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
1–10 of 230 posts
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#2To never get overly attached to my tools - programming languages, frameworks, paradigms, patterns etc. and to always choose the right tool for the right job, by putting aside my own personal bias.
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#3To never get overly attached to my tools - programming languages, frameworks, paradigms, patterns etc. and to always choose the right tool for the right job, by putting aside my own personal bias.
I'd like to do that but could never actually achieve it.
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#4life: read Walden.
http://blog.fogus.me/2006/10/26/the-floating-books/
programming: going to college
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#5Life: moving to London.
Programming: quitting permie jobs and going for a contract in London.
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#6Life: To buy only the minimum number of things I need, and work out the rest as I go along.
Programming: The realisation that once you understand the same basic structures (declarations, loops, recursion, data types) and the underlying paradigm in one programming language, you can easily learn any other programming language.
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#7Life: The day I learned to stop worrying and love the chaos.
Programming: The day I pulled my head out of my ass and started learning from my peers.
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#8Life: Making the decision last year to do things outside of my comfort zone in an attempt to bring them inside. I went travelling for a few months, moved to London, and now have a lot of paths open for work
Programming: attempting to build an MMO each year and getting further each time. The problems are hard and very interesting to me, so I love to learn in this area
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#9life: going to study abroad as an exchange student.
programming: learning ruby in 2001. Not the language per se, but the community at the time was full of smart people (lispers, smalltalkers, random PL geeks) and dumber people like me would learn a lot.
Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?
#10Life: Leaving my comfort zone and moving abroad.
Professional: Working as an independent developer, instead of as a wage slave.