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Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

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101–110 of 230 posts

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#101
Not a programmer, but may be of use:

Life: continuous learning, whether it be a new language, a new skill, travel. Whatever I learn usually produces benefits in unexpected ways, years down the road.

Runner-up: barbell weight-lifting, three times per week. If you've never been strong, you owe it to yourself to try. You get a physical sense of capacity to match whatever mental sense of capacity you've achieved.

Work: Trying my own thing. I had no clear plan, but I had criteria to evaluate whether what I worked on was paying off.

Two years out, I've got steady monthly passive income, and am working for a startup doing work I'm passionate about (selling an online LSAT course) while continuing to pursue my own projects.

Casting off the set path of law school/a job opened my mind to new possibilities and forced me to find my own way.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#102

Life: forgiving my wife after she had an affair. It was hard, but a single mistake doesn't negate the fact that she is a great mom, we are good together and our son deserves a shot at having his dad in the house. Programming: learning by doing instead of by reading. I started learning Rails when I wanted to build PicDigest and the mistakes I've made have helped me learn faster on a broader foundation.

You are a weak man!

No, he is a strong man.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#103
Giving up a stable job as a sr. dev at a good company with interesting projects to co-found a startup in a competitive market. All with a 1 year old at home, a second on the way and no savings other than some assurances from my previous employer that they would take me back should things fail.

It was scary at the time. But worth it.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#105
post #92

Life: Accepting Jesus as saviour. I have prayed for wisdom and understanding. This has helped me to deal and understand every kind pf situation am facing and also understand people. Programming: Having an understanding of every situation i face.

Are some people seriously downvoting this?

I'm not surprised if they are. 'Programming: Having an understanding of every situation i face.' - that's not a decision, that's preaching. 'Look I am religious and magically understand every situation I face'.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#107

Giving up video games in my 20s. If I hadn't done that, I'd still be stuck in front of a game somewhere. Those things will eat your life.

Those things eat your life if you allow them to. Yes, having self-control while gaming is really hard, but I've found succss in that area to some extent. I fix slots throughout the day for gaming. And I MOSTLY follow them.

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#108

Life: 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.

Yes! A close friend told me a few years ago: "life is chaos". At the time I didn't understand how this shed any insight. My immediate reaction was to think: "but life is a mixture of order and disorder – is not your statement obviously false?" A year later it hit me. Perhaps this is not what she meant, but I formulated it for myself as follows:

"The universe has absolutely no compulsion to be orderly or just."

Your life will be a mess. The world will be incredibly unjust. Billions do and will suffer. You are helpless to affect this in any meaningful way. Your task is to learn to cope with all this and find path to inner serenity.

--

Reading Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching helped form some structure around this idea for me by fitting it into a framework for positive action and providing a number of helpful mantras: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/taote...

Re: Ask HN: what was the best life/programming choice you ever made?

#110

Life: leaving the academic world and doing things that actually affect / matter to people. Programming: writing an Atari ST emulator (it landed me a job offer by a prestigious game company)

I feel you on the 'life' part. Only people that have been deeply commited to academia, and realizing its role in this era, can understand the emotional impact on this choice.

Could you explain what you mean by "its role in this era"? Do you believe academic institutions are becoming more or less relevant?
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