101–110 of 175 posts
Missing topic: version control Obviously also missing is programming languages and e.g. good recommended books/links for each, but I understand that it's meant to be language-agnostic so listing any particular one would not work.
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I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?
Not trying to offend, but . . . > If I enjoy xyz, who are you to judge me for that? I find this (common) sentiment troubling and frankly a bit arrogant. Whether or not you enjoy something is not always good metric for said thing's long term effects on your life. Other people have experienced different things than you and may have some really good insights. Assuming you know exactly what's best strikes me as arrogant.…
Conforming behaviours. Not beneficial. One could argue that conforming to mainstream is beneficial for the society, though I personally don't buy it - if you look at what the average of human interests is, it's all pretty petty. If we were all stuck at the lowest common denominator, I'm not sure if we would get far as a civilization.
Now, one good argument I've heard for following the "mainstream wisdom" on "getting a life" is regret - i.e. that if you won't live a life in a particular way (lots of social interactions, focusing on a spouse and kids, etc.) you'll regret that on your deathbed. I'm still relatively young (in the lower half of my expected lifespan), so I might be wrong about it, but I don't buy that argument either. I've come to the conclusion that regret will happen anyway - people basically regret what they didn't do. If I focus on cranking out widgets, I'll regret not spending time with the kids. If I focus on my family, I'll regret not doing anything actually useful with my life. Etc.
Bottom-line: I think that currently, the pendulum is still too far on the conforming side.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?
I'm not OP but I took it as 'get a life [outside of work]', i.e. don't get bogged down in the crazy 100-hour work weeks and stressing about climbing corporate ladders if it's not what you enjoy. What you do with your free time is up to you, it's just a reminder that it's your free time not your companies.
"Get a life" has always at least had a negative undercurrent, and is often an overt insult implying that one's entire lifestyle is unworthy, and inferior to mainstream lifestyles.
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If this is how it was meant, perhaps a different phrase would have conveyed OPs opinion better. For me, "get a life" is strongly associated with "douchey jock" behaviour, bullying, nerd-shaming (is that word a thing? it is now) and phrases like "you like math? what a nerd, get a girlfriend bro", things I'm sure many people on HN have had to deal with.
As a person who lived through this as a kid, I want to express my strong support for your comment, and provide +1 data point. IT going mainstream made life a bit easier for us - if you say you're a programmer, people no longer roll their eyes. But that's not because geeky/nerdy lifestyle is more accepted now. It isn't. If I say to my cow-orkers that I code a lot after work, most will be looking at me like a weirdo ju…
Oh well, it is not for everyone. :-)
This is what every programmer should know: 1. Life is too short, so get a life. 2. Know that you don't know everything, so get don't arrogant. 3. Don't get caught up in the various programming "religious" wars, there's more to life than a specific point of view. 4. Laugh and enjoy the the wonderful beauty in the world around us. 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot. 6. Sometimes the "import…
I find that saying the phrase "get a life" to people that enjoy what they are doing is extremely condescending. If I enjoy programming all day, or having huge flame wars, or maintaining a huge collection of antique watering cans sorted by volume, then who are you to judge me for that?
1- Focus on the problem and not the tools ceremony around it. 2-Don't follow the herd and the hype. When given a problem, keep drilling the problem until it is absolutely clear to you and then only work on solution.
Meta-habit: learn to adopt different habits for different situations. With that in mind, some techniques I've found useful for various situations:
When developing for yourself or a small team, let problems accumulate and fix them all at once (or throw out the code base and start anew). When developing for a large team, never let problems accumulate; the code base should always be in a state where a new developer could look at it and say "I know what this does and how to change it." This is a consequence of the reader:writer ratio - startup code is written a lot more than it is read and so readability matters little, but mature code is read much more than it is written. (Switching to the latter culture when you need to develop like the former to get users & funding & stay alive is left as an exercise for the reader.)
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There's more to Life beyond Programming - [Marriage, Love, Kids] (not a sorted list)
My list in order Kids Health Happiness Money Marriage
Whenever I think i'm hot shit I go watch some SpaceX videos on YouTube. That gets my feet back on the ground and my nose to the grindstone pretty quickly heh.
This is what every programmer should know: 1. Life is too short, so get a life. 2. Know that you don't know everything, so get don't arrogant. 3. Don't get caught up in the various programming "religious" wars, there's more to life than a specific point of view. 4. Laugh and enjoy the the wonderful beauty in the world around us. 5. You're as much the idiot as the person you consider an idiot. 6. Sometimes the "import…