Programmers need to start meditating • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#31

Post by stavros » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:31 AM UTC

I was discussing Buddhism with a few Buddhist friends this past weekend, and I randomly had an enlightenment. It was a very odd experience, I felt like I understood all the weird things I'd heard from them, and I suddenly became very calm and accepting of everything. I also had a sense of sort of "watching" what I was experiencing through my own eyes.

I'm generally hyper rationalist, so this was a very interesting experience, and it happened because a random thing one of my friends said about meditation made something "click" in me.

It lasted about a day, I can't say I have any lasting effects from it now. It'd be interesting to see if I can make it happen again, but when I was in that state, I thought that trying to make it happen would defeat the purpose.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#32

Post by cl3misch » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:32 AM UTC

sph wrote: post #15

You say programming used to be a meditative activity. Then why get overwhelmed by LLMs and meditate to calm down, when you can just write the code yourself at a healthier pace? Tools are supposed to be designed around humans, it’s not the human that has to adapt to the machine. In any case, meditating with an end to destress or to reach higher levels of productivity is missing the point of meditation.

> Tools are supposed to be designed around humans

This is a common thing to say, but when during the development of human civilization has this actually been the case? Is agriculture designed around humans more than hunting/gathering? Is industrialized work more designed around humans than agrarian society?

I don't mean to sound pessimistic or technocratic; quite the contrary. But I think we shouldn't project our desire for equanimity onto romantized versions of civilization.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#33

Post by keyle » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:33 AM UTC

I've been doing this for 25 years professionally and let's just say I'm more the 3 coffees, 1 redbull, headphones and bassdrive kind of programmer.

So no, I will not be "meditating". My meditative states tend to be beard stroking and occasional F bomb.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#34

Post by ThunderSizzle » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:34 AM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #24

bragh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we just aren't far enough in the vibe coding side of things and there are still too many people in the industry who still pay attention to details, so no major catastrophes haven't happened yet because of vibe coding. So the people who pay attention to details are still carrying their organizations, but I do wonder how long it is going to be sustainable. When it comes to joy killers because of AI, then it is di…

> major catastrophes haven't happened yet because of vibe coding Didn't Azure, AWS and Cloudflare crash a few times in the second half of 2025 because of vibe coding?

Catastrophies would be we vibe coded a nuclear plant or space rocket system and we blew up thousands of people due to a vibe coding error.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#35

Post by testfrequency » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:38 AM UTC

I was so stressed at work a few years ago. Burnt out. Exhausted. I started meditating. Shared with my manager that I started, and it’s been helping me process all the chaos at work.

He told me that wasn’t normal, and I shouldn’t have to meditate just to function at work :’)

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#36

Post by inigyou » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:38 AM UTC

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #34

inigyou wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> major catastrophes haven't happened yet because of vibe coding Didn't Azure, AWS and Cloudflare crash a few times in the second half of 2025 because of vibe coding?

Catastrophies would be we vibe coded a nuclear plant or space rocket system and we blew up thousands of people due to a vibe coding error.

Bringing most of the western world economy to a standstill isn't one? When I say AWS was down I mean AWS was down.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#37

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:39 AM UTC

senfiaj wrote: post #9

ehnto wrote: post #3

I have certainly noticed my stress skyrocket in this new mode of working. I was used to getting a lot done very quickly, with intense pockets of work followed downtime. Now it feels more like a steady stream of medium stress, and there is no opportunity to stop or drop the thread. I must admit, if this is the new way of doing software development (eg: not actually programming but working with LLMs) I am not going to…

Yeah, same thoughts. And this industry is becoming so volatile, I'm not sure what will happen tomorrow. I mean it's highly unlikely that AI will replace developers at least in the next 10 years, but I'm not sure what will "software developer" become. Certain people love to work with details. If AI is taking away this joy, I'll rather retire as early as possible from this volatile industry.

[deleted]

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#38

Post by titanomachy » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:41 AM UTC

I try not to context switch when doing agentic programming. Instead, I use a single agent thread (in pi) and pay extra for faster inference (GLM 5.2 from fireworks.ai, currently; around 100 tokens per second). I rarely spend more than $25 per working week, which is a fraction of a percent of my own fee (I’m a specialist consultant). I also keep an Anthropic subscription and use that for longer research and design tasks.

I’m sure many people produce more than me, but I retain my sanity as well as a high level of understanding of the code that I produce, which in my domain I feel is still important. I’ve tried ultracode-style subagent workflows and find that they rapidly produce reams of slop that I don’t have the patience or energy to properly review.

I also meditate quite a bit.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#39

Post by Uptrenda » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

Bros "discuss on hacker news" link takes you to submit the article here. that really rustles my jimmies. its unfortunate that bro couldnt csrf the submit link thanks to submit tokens. I have no doubt he would have tried that too.

Re: Programmers need to start meditating

#40

Post by cyclopeanutopia » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #31

I was discussing Buddhism with a few Buddhist friends this past weekend, and I randomly had an enlightenment. It was a very odd experience, I felt like I understood all the weird things I'd heard from them, and I suddenly became very calm and accepting of everything. I also had a sense of sort of "watching" what I was experiencing through my own eyes. I'm generally hyper rationalist, so this was a very interesting ex…

What was the thing that made you click?