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Surviving Disillusionment

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Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#101

Post by cambalache »

borroka wrote: post #42
jkaptur wrote: post #22

> ... running breweries and hydroponic farms, with no desire to ever again touch a compiler, let alone get back into the fray. Reiterating the point of the article: it doesn't need to be this way . Whether tech is your passion, your hobby, or your job, it does not need to feel like a "fray". This website is one of the worst offenders, since it relentlessly, breathlessly promotes new shiny things every refresh. It's a…

But people who get disillusioned with tech are not people who don't want to talk about "JS frameworks" or similar tech topics. Quite the contrary, they want their view to win, broadly speaking, in the conversation or the deployment. It is the lack of agency, not the conversation, the problem for the tech-frustrated.

No, you invented that argument in your mind and no-wonder, easily won it. Most people who get tired and disillusioned dont belong to any "Language/Framework evangelism task force". They just want some stability, substance over form, hate silly hype, hate self-proclaimed gurus, hate clueless HR managers. Give them a solid set of tools (no matter much which), sane working conditions, sane managers, a reasonable development strategy and they will more than happily come back. Cut back the ageism and leave political activism for the after-job hours, that will help too.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#102

Post by cambalache »

shay_ker wrote: post #8

> I've met many engineers with extraordinary talent who decided to stop making software. They wanted to program computers all their lives. They were born for it. After spending six, eight, ten years in the industry, they quit for good. Now they're running breweries and hydroponic farms, with no desire to ever again touch a compiler, let alone get back into the fray. Are these people who also made a ton of money via R…

As someone who lost his shirt in a brewery and it is now in software I would beware of the "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#103

Post by cambalache »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #17
jasode wrote: post #10

>I've met many engineers with extraordinary talent who decided to stop making software. They wanted to program computers all their lives. They were born for it. After spending six, eight, ten years in the industry, they quit for good. [...] Something had to have gone wrong for them to abandon their first love. >But sitting at a mandated retrospective or mindlessly gluing APIs together doesn't put me over the moon. It…

I think getting older is part of it. I used to love learning about different assembly architectures and spent lots of time on it, but as I got older a couple things happened: one, other things take up more of my time. Two, I already know a lot about assembly, so I don't get much from learning a new architecture that is probably only marginally different from one I already know. I remember discovering HN around 2008 w…

> I remember discovering HN around 2008 when I was a teenager.

> Now, it's rare for me to come across something I don't understand

And here I was, reading you thinking you were Donald Knuth, I think you vastly overestimate the breadth and depth of your knowledge.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#104

Post by jlos »

blippage wrote: post #37

I think the author misdiagnosed the problem. It's not Corporate that's the real problem, it's the fact that what you're working on is probably just not that interesting. Plus the fact that you have to keep slugging away with it whether you like it or not. No-one gets excited about writing accounts packages. It reminds me of an anecdote a pro photographer gave to someone thinking of entering the field: if you love pho…

While it sometimes has the connotation of a lack of skill, the contrast is the motivation: The amateur's labour out of love, as opposed to the professional who labors for practical gain.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#105

Post by borroka »

cambalache wrote: post #101
borroka wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people who get disillusioned with tech are not people who don't want to talk about "JS frameworks" or similar tech topics. Quite the contrary, they want their view to win, broadly speaking, in the conversation or the deployment. It is the lack of agency, not the conversation, the problem for the tech-frustrated.

No, you invented that argument in your mind and no-wonder, easily won it. Most people who get tired and disillusioned dont belong to any "Language/Framework evangelism task force". They just want some stability, substance over form, hate silly hype, hate self-proclaimed gurus, hate clueless HR managers. Give them a solid set of tools (no matter much which), sane working conditions, sane managers, a reasonable develop…

"They just want some stability, substance over form, hate silly hype, hate self-proclaimed gurus, hate clueless HR managers." - Why, following your description, my mind goes to grumpy folks who cannot understand how other people don't do and say the way they (the grumpy folks) are 100% sure they should?

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#106

Post by slumdev »

shay_ker wrote: post #32
cycloptic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would they though? I think that's a shallow outlook, the importance of saving lives doesn't lessen once you become wealthy. Everyone has to watch their friends and family get old and sick eventually. Compare that to a lot of technology jobs. I think my friends and family will be fine if the schedule at Netflix slips and they have to wait a few years to watch sitcoms in 8K. (Edit: I don't mean to disparage anyone work…

How many doctors would still do the job if they got paid a middle class salary? It's pretty clear, to me at least, that very few would even bother. Veterinarians are a good comparison - there's very few, low salaries, passionate about animals, and high suicide rates due to unending debt. Yes - some doctors end up volunteering with Doctors without Borders & similar non-profit groups. Some engineers have gotten more po…

> How many doctors would still do the job if they got paid a middle class salary?

Nearly all of them. The most common specialties do pay middle-class salaries.

The very highest salaries (almost all in surgical specialties) skew the mean quite a bit, but the median is not as high as you think it is.

It hasn't been a lifestyle profession for 20 years.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#107

Post by kubanczyk »

Yes, we need new rituals. And priests. Not only tech folk, but I think whole population. New rituals not polluted by those damn stories of all sorts.

I cringe when I think about the prospect of my funeral ceremony.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#108

Post by stuntkite »

> Engineers don't have a daily ritual that reminds us why we got into the field. Without a ritual, the drudgery creeps closer and the vision of the monastery recedes.

This really hit me. I've been thinking for a few years now that it's insane that something I liked as a kid that no one cared about now runs the world. The work can seem so detached from the things I'm actually good at, things that actually create value. Corporate culture seems to be designed to squash my ritual and my morale. The thing I loved has been corrupted in a way that doesn't even serve the host in the best way. It tries to make sure I'm replaceable.... but inventors rarely are. All they ensure is scope creep and an increase in my desire to say fuck it to all of this and become a farmer.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#109

Post by jlos »

I wonder if this disillusionment comes from trying to combine what gives you meaning and what gives you an income. I spent most of my 20's failing to become a religious minister before switching to CS and experienced a large amount of disillusionment in the process. My sense of meaning and purpose in life were so tightly tied to my vocation that the loss of one meant the loss of the other.

Before I switched to CS, I saw behind me years of unused education and experience and in front of me low paying jobs I didn't enjoy outside my field of expertise. I chose CS because it was interesting enough and paid enough to have a job. I realized in the process (which was a difficult one) that I could still have all the things I wanted originally, but just split up into different baskets:

- A job where my minds engaged (learning, problems solving, etc) and pays well.

- Outlets for my creative endeavours (music, writing, etc)

- Outlets for community (church, sports leagues, even work)

- Outlets for helping others/finding meaning (for me, being involved in my church)

And the interesting thing is, by splitting all these things up I am actually much more resilient to failure in any one area. I enjoy the sense of wonder from my job when it strikes me, but, so far, the drudgery hasn't spoiled the work for me because I can scratch that itch elsewhere. I also feel free to leave my future open and transition to something else if I happen to feel otherwise without abandoning that sense of identity.

Re: Surviving Disillusionment

#110

Post by frompdx »

pgt wrote: post #48

My monastery is Lisp (mainly Clojure) and the ritual is functional programming. It keeps me sane and in software. But today, and for the next two weeks I have to deal with the hell-hole that is the JavaScript/NPM/Webpack ecosystem and it made me want to quit my job. This is why I warn people about Lisp: it can ruin you and make you unproductive for a long time if you are forced to use inferior tools.

I have had a similar experience. ClojureScript ruined JavaScript for me.
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