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Programming is a Terrible Job

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Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#131

Post by xxbondsxx »

joshlegs wrote: post #129
10098 wrote: post #126

Honestly, I can understand OP's frustration. I would be lying if I said I didn't think similar thoughts. But the truth is, you don't get do to what you want unless you're running your on company. Even if you are running your own company, you have to make sure you're doing the right thing in order to not go bankrupt. I think having hobby projects can help provide a nice balance between doing whatever the hell you want…

protip: every job is like this. I went into journalism because i LOVED reading and writing. Making it a career sapped the fun out of it. Now i'm coding professionally. It's much more fun than the pressures of journalism, but I do find myself sometimes thinking "this was more fun when I did it just for the heck of it"

You mean a job is sometimes work? How weird.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#132

Post by loup-vaillant »

avenger123 wrote: post #86
loup-vaillant wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are an incredible amount of hard problems and interesting challenges in frontend web dev. Name three that your boss will allow you to work on. > there are all sorts of exciting projects to get involved with Name three that your boss will allow you to work on. > If you think its all just JS hacks you're doing it wrong. Or maybe that's his boss doing it wrong: like, "This form is ugly on our HR people's compute…

I think that's giving too much power to your job. Your boss may not let you work on it but there's no reason to not work on it outside the job for 5-10 hours a week, just for kicks. Those kicks might be enough to keep the day job more bearable. If at the end of the day, putting in 5-10 hours a week extra out of your own time for it is considered too much, then accept that you also see your work as just a job.

The OP himself reckons the hobby is fine. It's the job that sucks. Sure, you can take some quality programming time outside your job, and the OP does exactly that, but your day job is still taking a huge chunk off your life.

When a job sucks, the solution hardly lies in what you do in your spare time. First, I would try to improve the job, or enjoy it, or quit it, or annihilate it (we're programmers, annihilating jobs is what we do). And if all that fails or otherwise isn't worth my efforts, then I will give up and learn to love my spare time.

When someone is complaining their job sucks, my first reflex isn't to tell them to man up, cheer up, or give up. It's not helping. instead, I ask myself what could be done about it.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#133

Post by san86 »

I am not a programmer any more but working in the industry (InfoSec).. I remember a really smart guy who worked with us said he would be happy with 8-10 weeks of really exciting work each year. I agree with him.. if I have 8-12 weeks of really cool work that challenes me and the rest of the year is average, mundane work.. I will take it.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#134

Post by jrobbins »

If you're going to be a pro athlete, you need to love to practice, drill, and train, not just play. If you're going to be a race car driver, you have to love to hear the sound of the engine and feel the vibration as you go down the road, not just the thrill of winning. If you're going to be a musician, you need to love the feel of the instrument in your hand. If you're going to be a writer, you need to love words, grammar, typing, and editing. If you're going to be a painter, you need to love working with paint, not just imagining great subjects.

If you're going to dedicate your life to programming, you have to love code: syntax, text editing, refactoring, commenting, testing, debugging, tuning. All of that low-level stuff. The problem-solving and learning-new-technology fun parts are just the icing on the cake.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#135

Post by javert »

xxbondsxx wrote: post #131
joshlegs wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

protip: every job is like this. I went into journalism because i LOVED reading and writing. Making it a career sapped the fun out of it. Now i'm coding professionally. It's much more fun than the pressures of journalism, but I do find myself sometimes thinking "this was more fun when I did it just for the heck of it"

You mean a job is sometimes work? How weird.

Don't shoot the messenger.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#136

Post by droidist2 »

"Sometimes I also think if it would be different if I was born several decades earlier. Back then, software engineering was in its infancy."

I think a lot of people can relate to this. I've often wished I could have finished college right before the .com boom, because it would have been so obvious to me that the internet was going to be big. Or would it have been? Hindsight is 20/20. If you had been born decades earlier you likely wouldn't even be into programming.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#137

Post by asdasf »

aestra wrote: post #104
antocv wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If work was always enjoyable, then they wouldn't need to pay you to do it. Why do football players, musicians and movie actors get payed 1000x as much as the software engineers who made the technology to make possible their success? TV, Internet, radio, now all HD quality. So that some people can enjoy their work and earn millions while we who invent and produce the infrastructure should suck it up and call it work…

Wow. Who is to say every single professional athlete and musician and actor enjoys every single second of their career? Athletes' bodies are taxed to the maxed. Most of the above are in the public light 24/7, they might feel unsafe and have to hire bodyguards. That's not something everyone is going to enjoy. These people work hard, sometimes long hours. They are on the road, sometimes away from their families for lon…

>Who is to say every single professional athlete and musician and actor enjoys every single second of their career?

Why does this "every single second" strawman keep cropping up? The complaint was not that every single second of programming isn't glorious, it is that every single second is shit. The idea is not "other jobs are perfect because they are fun all the time", it is "other jobs are better because they aren't 100% pure shit all the time". If you don't agree that programming is 100% pure shit all the time, then argue against that. But don't stoop to lame strawman arguments.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#138

Post by stephenhuey »

ianstallings wrote: post #94

I'm approaching 20 years of doing this and I would love to have 20 years more. What this really sounds like, and the message gets muted by the complaints, is that the author wants you to find a part of software that interests you and follow that path. I agree 100%. Some people love front-end Javascript websites and all that entails. I find it painful. I still do it when called for but my true love is in low level pro…

And my interests are the other way around, and I try to explain to people just starting out that there are so many different kinds of opportunities within our industry and they can easily move around and try new things over the years without the fear of getting forever stuck on work they don't enjoy.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#139

Post by jophde »

acuozzo wrote: post #117
nicpottier wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys need to take responsibility for your unhappiness and go find a job where you aren't treated as a cog. I say that with complete sincerity. Find a better job.

> Find a better job. Sure! Can you provide for my family while I do?

I get the suspicion that a lot of people tech startup circles, never had to worry about paying there own bills. At any stage of life.

Re: Programming is a Terrible Job

#140

Post by mediumdave »

droidist2 wrote: post #136

"Sometimes I also think if it would be different if I was born several decades earlier. Back then, software engineering was in its infancy." I think a lot of people can relate to this. I've often wished I could have finished college right before the .com boom, because it would have been so obvious to me that the internet was going to be big. Or would it have been? Hindsight is 20/20. If you had been born decades earl…

I don't think it was obvious at the time.

I can distinctly recall seeing Mosaic for the first time in 1993 when a fellow undergrad showed me his home page. My thoughts were essentially, "that's really stupid: it's just a bunch of boring information about you". Email and usenet seemed (to me) far more interesting and important.

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