Ask HN: I am 30+ and bored with life and the software industry, what do I do?

I used to love software/programming but it's getting boring now. It seems so clear to me that so much futile effort is being put into building yet another language, yet another editor, yet another UI rework, yet another infrastructure rework. And for what, just because people would have something to show for. Seems the number of people trying to come up with futile things for the sake of popularity has outnumbered the ones who try to do real work.

The hate for one language as if other languages are elite. Trying to use all the features of a language and thinking a one liner is cool even when a five liner and a one liner is same when compiled into machine code. Too much jargon, falsely claimed software engineering practices and overly zealous object oriented mentality (Seems people try to use Object Oriented for everything, they call it the best, even better than simplicity in many cases.)

Quite frankly many years of self hacking/studying and experience in industry, I think I've just had it with software industry. Does it get any better ? Am I seeing things correctly ? Is this a burnout ?

I started a business. You get to experience many other things besides programming and it's always interesting.

Is there still anything you'd like to see built?

I mean, if you were on a desert island, would you even want a computer? What would you do with it?

The world of developers can seem like an echo chamber. But if your goal is to improve the real world, development is just a means to an end. Can you use your tools to help people who dont care about code at all? Does that perspective help?

There are also very different paradigms which I find renew my interest. erlang, rlang, golang... you may have to dig to find what keeps you interested.

It sounds like you need something new, something refreshing. Maybe take a break from your existing approaches?

I was there some years ago. I realized that the root cause of the problem was focusing on the wrong things (at least they were wrong for me).

Tools are just that - they are tools. Granted, there are many of them, new and shining, coming in all packages, but that gets tiresome after you've spent a substantial period of time with them. They are all essentially the same and sooner or later you lose interest in them.

What never gets boring is using tools to create things that affect people's lives. And I gather from your message that you've missed that joy.

My advice is simple. Think of some thing that would be helpful to (non-technical) end users. Come up with some kind of service that would solve even a small problem for them. Then see your eyes light up as people are adopting your offering and giving you their thanks.

In short, your work must have a meaning. You should know that somehow what you do improves the world we live in, even if in a small and seemingly insignificant way. For as long as you're just finishing tasks prepared by somebody else for somebody else's meaningless projects, you're not going to be happy. As with all creative professions, in programming too you have to take matter in your own hands.

You've just realized (subconsciously) that your work has been meaningless. You basically need to find your path. What you could do:

- Forget about the tools, just pick up something you're comfortable with and create something useful for people

- Change jobs until you find a project you can personally identify with and where you'll see you work affecting the outside world in a tangible way

- Change profession or role to the one where your need for meaning will be satisfied

That's hard I know. I wish it weren't but it's just the way things are in life.