I never found programming agonizing.
Never? Never some intractable bug, that didn't seem to have any relation to the source code you're reading?
I rarely had them and if I did I enjoyed the hunt. I enjoy tracing through all the layers.
Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#42I only find it to be painful when done for the corporate world... when I go home, even after 7 hours at the office, I find it therapeutic to push to main, not have a CI, not write tests, test in production, commit with one-liners like I'm asking someone if they want a beer, and overall just code any random idea that crosses my mind... even more so now with AI, because now I can get my ideas out there faster, and beli…
> to push to main, not have a CI, not write tests, test in production, commit with one-liners like I'm asking someone if they want a beer
All the start-ups and SMEs I've worked at were about as rigorous as that. Maybe I've just been unlucky (or lucky, depending on where you come from).
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose. I guess programming to me was always an excuse to do math, not necessarily to build products.
For me it's the exact opposite. I don't like math. I have very little intuition for it. Programming is not math for me even though people try to tell me that it is. Programming is my way to create something. It's like drawing or woodworking. It is creative and logical. That's why I don't mind or even like sysadmin stuff. But I know a lot of coworkers that don't like ops and in my company you don't have to do that. We…
I like math. I’ve done engineering in college which included a fair share of it and pursue it for fun. Programming is also not math for me.
It’s formal notation where you’re manipulating things encoded as numbers. Just like music sheets are notation for sound encoded as some symbols. Yes, there is math involved (because numbers) but there’s often a more concrete reason for such manipulation.
It’s not so different than drafting a technical drawing.
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#44One answer - Other People's Code
I know my code, I don't know your code. I don't know what you were thinking, why it's in the shape it's in. What assumptions you made that you might not have documented or who's documentation I have not found. Also, if you're the person who has to review it I have no idea what you'll accept which means I have to gamble wasting my time to make a PR on the off chance that you might not approve.
With my own code, all that goes away.
The other big one is yak shaving. Being forced to do things B, C, D, E, F before I can do the thing I wanted to do. I've lost projects to this where like say, some library has a bug, there's a fix in the new version, but the new version depends on newer things, and pulling those things in is not compatible with the project. I spent 30 to 60 - 120 minutes trying to get it to all work so I can get work, getting more and more pissed off, because this isn't what I planned to spend my time doing. And, I often fail and give up. Progress stopped on at least one personal project for ~4 years where once every 6 months or so I'd try to update dependencies and fail and never actually made any progress on the app.
Fortunately, this year, AI was able deal with it. It fixed the deps, removed most of them, and implemented most of the features on my TODO list from years ago.
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#45The only things I find agonizing about programming: 1. unrealistic time frames and expectations from non-technical managers, and 2. leetcode Everything else is awesome.
Nah, I have another one: Being confronted with my own stupidity and my own limits in mental capacity. The shocking thing is that this never goes away, even after decades of practice.
You must be careful not to let this become a self-defeating attitude.
Stop comparing with others and only focus on improving on your prior self. As long as you are making progress it does not matter how small each quantum is or how slow.
Concepts like "smart"/"stupid" etc. are relative (assuming there are no obvious biological causes) and are applicable only in specific domains. Each person can be associated with a "Radar Chart" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart) of domain expertises (one spoke per domain) where it can be seen that one is naturally "smarter"/"stupider" in some than others.
Drops of water falling, if they fall continuously, can bore through iron and stone - Chinese Proverb.
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#46What a lovely message!
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose. I guess programming to me was always an excuse to do math, not necessarily to build products.
I take it you aren't programming business CRUD apps? I almost never have to do any math. It would be a delight if I did.
I certainly have done my time with writing CRUD apps, but for the last decade or so, I've primarily focused on distributed systems stuff (usually involving Kafka or ZeroMQ or something), which is a bit more architecturey and I occasionally get to do some fun concurrency theory.
But when doing the more boring CRUD stuff I historically have gotten my math kicks out of playing with functional languages. I got into Haskell pretty early because I liked the idea that the type system felt pretty mathy.
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or at least the culture around JavaScript . I love writing JavaScript. I like React well enough. I'm not sold on NodeJS, though I'll accept that its struggles are no different than any other package manager. I just wish the whole thing would stand still for a minute. It's seriously exhausting to keep up with all of the deprecations, rewrites, new "best" frameworks, etc.
How is Node a package manager?
Fair. NPM is the part I actually distrust.
That said, I'm not sure it's necessary to make a distinction. I can't imagine many teams are using NodeJS (particularly with React or the like) without buying into the package ecosystem.
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#49This is one of my favorite quotes from Brooks:
"In practice, actual (as opposed to formal) authority is acquired from the very momentum of accomplishment."
"In practice, real authority comes not from titles but from influence built through consistently delivering results."
Full book: https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~weimerw/2018-481/readings/mythic...
Re: Why is programming so captivating, yet so agonizing?
#50Aside from the human side of it which is often nothing to do with programming itself, I'd say anything that is captivating is only so because its agonizing. If you have a problem to solve and instantly know the solution, there was no problem, just manual labour left not done (using that in the most technical sense). Solving problems is captivating, but it has to be hard or there'd be no problem at all.
Yea solving hard problems can be quite enjoyable, but can easily become a burden on your mind/body over time. When you're clearly making progress, then everything feels wonderful even if it's challenging. But when you're stuck, when your code/model isn't working as designed, if there is a clear gap between your current state of understanding and the amount required to solve the problem effectively, then you can fall…
Absolutely, I've been stuck on one problem for years now (why I haven't just abandoned it is another matter, the long story short is that I just can't) and yeh, like you say, I've been in some deep pits I can attribute to that, and I do find myself, especially but not always in those times, looking at others in the same field doing so much better seemingly effortlessly. But those times I get a glint of a solution, even if it doesnt end up becoming anything, are incomparable to any other hobby I've ever had. Whether thats worth it is up to the individual I guess, but I think for most people, when they find "their thing", it usually is, or at least isn't something they can choose not to do.
Can't have the rainbow without the rain as they say