Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software • Hacker News Board

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#261

Post by gravescale » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #246

_yb2s wrote: post #239

I don't understand why more adults don't have awesome hobbies... most of my childhood friends don't seem to do anything fun now as adults. I really love physical things I can do with my body as a counterbalance to working on the computer- weight lifting, woodworking, and sailing add a lot of value to my life, and have gotten me outdoors and in shape. I'm currently building a wood sailboat in my garage together with m…

Yeah, sure can name a lot of friends that consume: mainly gaming and streaming. Has the curve on the creator/consumer axis shifted in recent times or has it always been skewed toward consuming? Or is there instead a social axis that has been waning recently? I'm thinking of the once popular Bridge card game or bowling leagues as examples...

I think it's always been about the same. Shakespeare wrote plays watched by hundreds who mostly didn't write plays, Mozart's music halls were full of people who mostly didn't compose, Austen's novels were read by people who mostly didn't write novels.

Maybe it's become easier to consume incredible amounts of content for free recently, but it's also never been easier to make things if you want, either in terms of access to cheap materials and tools or instructional content. Perhaps the one thing that has waned a little is closer-knit forums that have been replaced with endless Reddit.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#262

Post by culopatin » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

colecut wrote: post #247

_yb2s wrote: post #239

I don't understand why more adults don't have awesome hobbies... most of my childhood friends don't seem to do anything fun now as adults. I really love physical things I can do with my body as a counterbalance to working on the computer- weight lifting, woodworking, and sailing add a lot of value to my life, and have gotten me outdoors and in shape. I'm currently building a wood sailboat in my garage together with m…

If you inherited woodworking tools from your grandfather, I'm assuming that either your grandfather or father taught you some woodworking skills? I grew up on the computer since I was a preteen. My dad moved 2000 miles away when I was 11. Every job I've ever had since I was 14 was web/software related and I am nearly 39. I feel like I have no practical skills outside of computers and the idea of building things with…

Don’t let that be a brake on your enjoyment though. I always liked cars and I do have an affinity for tinkering. But I didn’t know anything about fabrication. I got me a welder and many YouTube videos and hours later I was making stainless exhausts. It was a very enjoyable experience. Just stumbling through is most of the fun.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#263

Post by _yb2s » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:12 PM UTC

colecut wrote: post #247

_yb2s wrote: post #239

I don't understand why more adults don't have awesome hobbies... most of my childhood friends don't seem to do anything fun now as adults. I really love physical things I can do with my body as a counterbalance to working on the computer- weight lifting, woodworking, and sailing add a lot of value to my life, and have gotten me outdoors and in shape. I'm currently building a wood sailboat in my garage together with m…

If you inherited woodworking tools from your grandfather, I'm assuming that either your grandfather or father taught you some woodworking skills? I grew up on the computer since I was a preteen. My dad moved 2000 miles away when I was 11. Every job I've ever had since I was 14 was web/software related and I am nearly 39. I feel like I have no practical skills outside of computers and the idea of building things with…

Yes, that is certainly a key part of it. My dad built the house I grew up in by himself in his spare time while also working full time, and taught me basic woodworking as a kid.

But he taught me crude woodworking like framing in houses- almost none of the tools or skills translate into fine woodworking required for building things like furniture or boats. Until the last year I didn't know how to cut with the grain, what a planer was for, etc.

What my dad really taught me was the confidence that I can learn what I need as I go, to do almost anything. I'm not afraid to start big projects where I have zero idea how to do any of the steps required at first, and am expecting to learn them one at a time as I go. My dad would regularly jump into things like buying a car with a blown engine and expecting to rebuild it without any clue where to start- and then follow books and advice, and do it successfully the first time. So I learned to also do that.

YouTube has been a huge boon- anyone can learn almost anything for free, without needing someone to teach them first. Also tech like 3D printers allows people to get into making things without the physical skills previously needed.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#264

Post by moooo99 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:12 PM UTC

usrnm wrote: post #56

sukruh wrote: post #35

Most of the people I know who pursue creative/crafting hobbies alongside a software development job have chosen to work for well-known big companies, for prestige and safety, and ended up unfulfilled in their jobs. Most big companies are not good if you want to solve problems and build stuff. Especially "the enterprise", where software is seen as a cost center so the less of it the better. The effort of managing up e…

What's wrong with doing a boring job for a lot of money and then getting all the fun elsewhere? This actually seems to be the best way to do it to me

There is a difference between a job not being fun/being boring and actively dreading to do a job because of deadlines/management/etc

The former is tolerable for many, the latter usually isn’t for long

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#265

Post by skyfaller » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:13 PM UTC

colecut wrote: post #247

_yb2s wrote: post #239

I don't understand why more adults don't have awesome hobbies... most of my childhood friends don't seem to do anything fun now as adults. I really love physical things I can do with my body as a counterbalance to working on the computer- weight lifting, woodworking, and sailing add a lot of value to my life, and have gotten me outdoors and in shape. I'm currently building a wood sailboat in my garage together with m…

If you inherited woodworking tools from your grandfather, I'm assuming that either your grandfather or father taught you some woodworking skills? I grew up on the computer since I was a preteen. My dad moved 2000 miles away when I was 11. Every job I've ever had since I was 14 was web/software related and I am nearly 39. I feel like I have no practical skills outside of computers and the idea of building things with…

Yeah, both my parents have/had practical skills, like woodworking and gardening, and completely failed to pass them on.

Part of it is that they pushed me towards skills they thought would help me more, like computers... my dad liked to brag he had one of the first computers on the block, and that he put me in front of the computer as soon as I could sit up. They pushed me towards getting good grades instead of knowing how to work with physical objects.

Part of it is interest, like I wanted to do my own thing instead of my parents' things, once I had the choice. That's partly because my parents just weren't very kind or patient teachers, they were hypercritical, exacting perfectionists. Partly because my friends weren't working with physical objects much, so it didn't seem like a good way to connect with my peers.

But yeah, my parents were extremely present and they still did not pass on their knowledge.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#266

Post by JKCalhoun » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:13 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #238

ravenstine wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a level or two down from the abstraction of company size, crafting hobbies are also a reprieve from the tyranny of linters. So many programmers today believe that code is always better when it all looks identical. Consistency is a good thing, but not when it's expected to be absolute. Programming should actually allow for creativity, and where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but impor…

> where you decide to add spaces and newlines can actually add subtle but important communication as to the significance of a particular part of one's code. Isn't this part of the problem? If the purpose of code is to be understandable, the important communications shouldn't also be subtle. Your intention that the extra empty line before a block of code signals "This is the important part" is likely to be entirely lo…

> Much better to leave a comment saying "there's a subtle but important thing going on here".

Sure, but don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Well-meaning engineers frequently don't document their code at all. It's why I advocate programmers at least use descriptive variable names and function names; what I call "self-documenting code".

It still falls short of well-documented code but, as I say, gets you "good".

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#267

Post by bccdee » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

spacephysics wrote: post #133

azemetre wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only soul destroying if you let it be. As someone who grew up in poverty and spent most of my 20s working at a call center and pawn shop, I feel like the luckiest person in my family with my soul destroying corporate job. It sounds cliche but happiness is truly a state of mind. You don’t have to wait for something in the future to be happy now.

The illusion paradigm By saying you want to be happy, you’re already telling yourself there’s a gap between your state currently and that you wish to accomplish “I’ll be truly happy WHEN” When comes and goes, rarely have I heard someone say “well I said I’d be happy when this happened, it’s happened, and now I’m happy. All done” Fully agree, it’s a state of mind. I’d also add most people who say they want to be happy…

> rarely have I heard someone say “well I said I’d be happy when this happened, it’s happened, and now I’m happy

I've heard this, but only from people who had been in an very shitty situation and then got out. Happiness is a state of mind, but misery is a set of circumstances, and the latter precludes the former unfortunately.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#268

Post by softwaredoug » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

I’m not sure what’s actually absurd: software or a software career.

I enjoy the former. I enjoy collaborating on my craft and doing something fun and cool. I like the people I work with and enjoy helping grow and build other people’s careers.

Then there’s the reality of navigating a workplace - the “career” has the silliness of managing narcissists aspiring to be the next Steve Jobs. It’s generally lucrative, but that money attracts its own absurdity and egotists, putting more into advancing their status in an arbitrary org structure than building. The older I get the less energy I have for these sorts of politics.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#269

Post by evilduck » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #182

anonzzzies wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many hallucinations because changes in fast changing libraries. It makes up functions that were removed and libraries that have been deprecated. With robust stuff that doesn’t happen. It is frustrating. Even copilot regularly includes some react lib that doesn’t work anymore for the past 3 years because it depended on old stuff that is full of security issues, bugs or doesn’t work on a new node etc etc. So then I…

It’s funny because a big draw of React is the sizable user base and library count, but that ends up being a double edged sword when using LLMs for codegen.

RAG and large context sizes mitigate this well enough for me. Ingest the library's docs (and maybe a sizable chunk of your codebase) and use that to get better LLM output that isn't out of date or hallucinated.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#270

Post by jimbokun » Fri, May 03, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

digging wrote: post #214

Aeolun wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing the boring job at all is a waste of 50+% of your waking hours? By all means, do it if it makes the remaining 50% more enjoyable, but I think it’s possible to have both. I want to have my cake and eat it too.

Possible, but unlikely today. I think the advice being converged on is not to let the possibility of 100% enjoyment ruin one's actual, real-life situation. Attain it if you can, but don't spend your life rueing its absence.

It's more so true today than ever before, where there are more companies than ever willing to consider allowing software developers, and some other kinds of knowledge workers, to work any where in the world.

It gives you more opportunities to find that combination of work you find meaningful, coworkers you mesh with, flexibility, and decent compensation, than any other time in history I'm aware of.

It's still not easy. Just easier than in the past.