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How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

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Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#281

Post by M5x7wI3CmbEem10 »

overscore wrote: post #135
reaperducer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retiring sounds good right about now. I'm with you. If I had another skill, I'd give up computers entirely. Maybe have a smartphone, and that's it. But only for limited use. I wish I could build things with my hands, or play an instrument, or just be good at something else, and let the tech world pass me by. I used to love technology because it was fun and interesting. It's no longer either of those things.

For almost exactly the same reasons as discussed above, I'm in the process of trying to move from software development to medicine. I'm currently a pre-hospital medical practitioner and work part-time in that field. My pay averages over the last year averages between 1/20th to 1/25th (0.05 to 0.04 times) my hourly pay as a software development consultant. I'm now trying to decide whether I should attempt a medical de…

what are some of the more promising biotech companies? most of what I've seen is genomics with CRUD apps, sloppy python code, and untidy excel sheets.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#282

Post by rufus_foreman »

throwawayboise wrote: post #35
beaconstudios wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awe and contempt are basically the same feeling, but with the charge flipped. The author is amazed that it works to the degree that it does, you're amazed a how things don't work the way you want them to. Such is the power of framing, I guess.

I used to get emotional like this about programming, both the awe and the contempt depending on circumstances. Now, after 30 years, it's just work. I don't really feel anything about it. And that's kind of the way everything is. Nothing is new or exciting. I wake up, work, do household stuff, eat, go to bed. That's life. Not interesting, not depressing, just neutral.

Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#283

Post by M5x7wI3CmbEem10 »

amenod wrote: post #186
RickS wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> victims of the same broken game. I work with very smart people, to be honest. Couldn't agree more. I'm an SDE1.5 at best, working with a guy that's probably a 3.5. Writes code that's way over my head sometimes, and always well-tested and elegant. Lately I've been helping him by debugging issues in eg tsconfig and various JS build fuckery, and it's been both a relief and a surprise that even really brilliant people…

Of course they are. They are written by people and often become standard because of good marketing instead of merit. However, I still find satisfaction in learning new things, trying to be better each day, overcoming new and more challenging problems and solving riddles in a nicer and more elegant way. I fail in all these things, too, of course - but it does give me a sense of purpose. And I don't appreciate any tool…

> That said, if I didn't enjoy programming, I would be happy to move to management

would you go for project management in particular or are there other paths?

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#284

Post by quickthrower2 »

picks_at_nits wrote: post #33

I am deeply, deeply romantic about programming. I consider it an act of self-actualization. But answering the question literally, I am not representative of everyone in the industry, and that's a good thing. It's easy to feel romantic about your vocation when you have a number of reasonable options for achieving modest financial security, and you thus had the privilege of choosing the one that most closely matched yo…

I was romantic but jaded by many years experience plus the move from creation to glue code being what is needed for business

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#285

Post by the_only_law »

I wish I could be romantic about something again. Outside the typical industry stuff that killed it for me is the fact that nothing feels like magic anymore.

When I was a kid and really started programming. There was all sorts of software that fascinated me. It seemed like magic and the code behind it looked arcane. I would often to try to learn about things far out of reach for a kid who was really user beginning and I wasn’t really intelligent enough to stick with it and figure it out and it felt like magic still.

After I first burned out, I came back to some of this stuff. Sometimes by our accident and sometimes to try and recapture that magic. Now I was much more experienced and a little bit smarter however, and the magic quickly fell apart. Everything made sense when you think about it and a lot of things seemed closer to hacks than magic (not the cool kind either).

Since then I’ve lost of lot of interest in programming. There are still things outside of programming that I’ve tried to replace it with that give the same feeling as programming once did, but I find I don’t have the intelligence or straight up money to get into them the same way.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#287

Post by nickthemagicman »

vlunkr wrote: post #110
reaperducer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retiring sounds good right about now. I'm with you. If I had another skill, I'd give up computers entirely. Maybe have a smartphone, and that's it. But only for limited use. I wish I could build things with my hands, or play an instrument, or just be good at something else, and let the tech world pass me by. I used to love technology because it was fun and interesting. It's no longer either of those things.

I know it's the biggest cliche in the world, but the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Lots of musicians wish they had a skill that let them sit at a desk all day and get a stable paycheck. Not saying you have to keep working in tech forever, but I don't think it's objectively stopped being fun and interesting.

This is true. One of the best musicians I know. A trained classical guitarist with decades of professional playing.

Just became a real estate agent.

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#288

Post by aidenn0 »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #4

"After a while, more and more, you’ll find yourself in moments of awe, stunned by the size and fragility of it all; the mountains of work and talent and creativity and foresight and intelligence and luck that went into it. And you’ll reach for the word “magic” because you won’t know how else to describe it and then you lean back and smile, wondering how someone could not." I guess I wish I felt like that about progra…

Most programmers are not idiots, and whatever degree they are dicks, little of the dickish behavior is directed towards leaving traps for future developers.

That poor code gets written is due mostly due to the constraints (both technical and non technical) around writing code.

As a further aside, I've never been in fear of losing my job if I couldn't solve a bug. If you have been (for any other reason than the fact that not solving the bug would be an existential threat to your employer), then may I suggest finding a better employer?

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#289

Post by higerordermap »

ljm wrote: post #76
andrewflnr wrote: post #15

While I don't disagree with the article, this quote better sums up how I feel about programming. > The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination... Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construc…

let var i be none while var i is less than j i is i plus one

TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'NoneType' and 'int'

Re: How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)

#290

Post by dleslie »

RickS wrote: post #98
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer I am in this profession (and it's been over 20 years) the less I see my peers as "dicks and idiots" but more as victims of the same broken game. I work with very smart people, to be honest. It's the technology and the employers and the culture of development that's the problem. Retiring sounds good right about now.

> victims of the same broken game. I work with very smart people, to be honest. Couldn't agree more. I'm an SDE1.5 at best, working with a guy that's probably a 3.5. Writes code that's way over my head sometimes, and always well-tested and elegant. Lately I've been helping him by debugging issues in eg tsconfig and various JS build fuckery, and it's been both a relief and a surprise that even really brilliant people…

I've never worked at a company which took titles seriously, let alone fractional title levels; what on earth do those mean?
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