Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

thecodist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 634 posts

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#331

Post by okyup »

Gonzih wrote: post #242
okyup wrote: post #140

I agree that programming is a dead end job. It's popular and relatively easy. It doesn't require any special skills. Anyone with an average IQ can learn it. There's low cost and barrier of entry to getting started. It's fun and addicting when you're a kid. Then you get trapped and it becomes monotonous. There's only so good you can get at programming. Beyond that, most of your time is spent on debugging trivial issue…

So programming is not creative in your opinion?

It's barely creative. You have a small amount of room to work within someone's requirements.

You can be the guy creating the requirements, but then you're better off specializing in that and letting someone else do the grunt work.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#332

Post by kamaal »

Zelmor wrote: post #113
tomp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10X the assets => retire 10 times sooner => program when you're retired => no missing out

That's stupid. I am not willing to suffer for 20 years to then enjoy the remaining 30-40 whatever there will be. You don't know how long you will live, and what is your old days worth if you broken in your youth trying to be safe when you are 50? I'd rather work, as some do, 3-4 hours every single day for the rest of my life, than 12 hour days for 10 years and then compensate my lost youth, health and relationships w…

>>You don't know how long you will live

Going by the trends you will likely live long.

>>and what is your old days worth if you broken in your youth trying to be safe when you are 50?

Far more worth than being 50, out of cash or very little of it, competing with a impossibly competitive new generation. Living in perennial fear of layoffs, making ends meet and having a roof above your head. All the while watching your peers who made sound investments already retire and having a gala time now.

>>I'd rather work, as some do, 3-4 hours every single day for the rest of my life, than 12 hour days for 10 years and then compensate my lost youth, health and relationships with yachts or whatever money could buy.

Retirement has rarely meant turning into a vegetable these days. Retirement only means financial freedom to do what you want. Imagine how valuable your relationships will be when you spend quality time with your friends and family, instead of running into old age expecting help from everyone starting from family, friends to government.

>>That is what socialism->communism was about in my country. We have to suffer just a little more and then we'll get there. Guess what. We never got there.

As a Indian who lived through socialism I can tell scores of people 'got there'.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#333

Post by davidw »

> The CIO at the same place never believed anything his employees told him but believed everything vendors told him. Of course we knew he was taking kickbacks as we kept buying things we had no use for and he kept writing articles for them relating how wonderful their products were for us. Yet we used almost none of it. Some time after I left he was fired and perp-walked out of the company yet immediately got another similar CIO position.

That is galling, but it seems to happen with some frequency. I can't quite figure it out to be honest.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#335

Post by nocman »

tamana wrote: post #290
BatFastard wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the path that lets you spend more good time with your family and friends. Those experiences add to the fabric of life more than money does.

Money buys time and freedom and security.

Actually it doesn't buy time or freedom, usually.

In my experience, most (not all, but most) of the people who have a lots of money acquire it by working long days and having little free time. They also have little freedom because they are so tied to their job.

Again, everyone with lots of money doesn't have this problem, but in my experience most of them do.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#336

Post by fatlasp »

Zelmor wrote: post #24

He would have been unhappy with the other choice as well, because then it is the programming side he would be missing out on. I would advise everyone to read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536 You chose one option out of many, and the others may no longer be a possibility. However, the writer's unhappiness does not spawn from his inability to be successful at what he does,…

>My sister started as a programmer 30 years ago but jumped into management [...] My sister has 10X the assets I have.

This also has SO much to do with OPs lifestyle / propensity to save. "The millionaire next door" goes a long way in explaining how even lower income households can accumulate much more wealth than many high income earners with simple lifestyle differences.

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#337

Post by dccoolgai »

naasking wrote: post #306
dccoolgai wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| It would actually be a decent language if it reported type errors instead. The Web would also probably stop working and be much more of a pain to code if JS acted that way: http://i.imgur.com/76Wtthy.jpg

It would stop working if you did it NOW. That's irrelevant to the point that that's how JS should have worked from the beginning. Also, they can add these semantics to JS now too with a new type of strict mode without breaking anything. As for how painful it would be, your claim is a total fabrication. Other dynamically typed languages are a pleasure to program in without implicit coercions everywhere. JS is widely c…

|JS is widely considered a pain.

I find that is widely enjoyed by the "silent majority" and decried as a pain by a very vocal subset of developers. It's a little surprising that 1 + '1' is '11', until you spend a little time and learn the rules instead of fighting them - then you start doing your work in a way that uses that to save time. It's not great for everyone, but I like it - and I know a lot of other good devs who prefer the answer '11' (when you understand the fairly simple rules) to 'OMFGNOIQUIT'. I find "Number beats bool, string beats number" for implicit coercions covers 95% of cases where it would actually matter. For the other 5%, just type it in the console.

Because I like it that way, doesn't mean you have to as well - but it also doesn't mean that because you don't like (or even most of the commenters on HN) it it is "widely considered a pain".

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#339

Post by maqr »

nickbauman wrote: post #322
exelius wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just have to say this: So typically american. The attitude presented in the article is indeed typically American -- but not for the reason I think you intended. The quintessential American quality is the belief that every person has the right to control their own destiny. Fuck, it's right there in the first sentence of the first document declaring this country's independence. Americans are often seen as greedy re…

OTOH people I know with a lot of money have serious relationship issues. Money distorts your social connections. It's really not worth it. At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back into the same box (old Sicilian proverb).

You may be right, but I only ever hear my fellow working class people espousing that view...

Re: My Biggest Regret as a Programmer

#340

Post by Bluestrike2 »

exelius wrote: post #212
Zelmor wrote: post #24

He would have been unhappy with the other choice as well, because then it is the programming side he would be missing out on. I would advise everyone to read The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536 You chose one option out of many, and the others may no longer be a possibility. However, the writer's unhappiness does not spawn from his inability to be successful at what he does,…

> I just have to say this: So typically american. The attitude presented in the article is indeed typically American -- but not for the reason I think you intended. The quintessential American quality is the belief that every person has the right to control their own destiny. Fuck, it's right there in the first sentence of the first document declaring this country's independence. Americans are often seen as greedy re…

It's a very interesting dynamic. Humanistic psychology focuses extensively on ideas of locus of control (Rotter) and self-actualization (Maslow). The perspective has its shortcomings, but I think it manages to hit on a point that many of the others either miss or place little emphasis on. People in general tend to underestimate just how significant that can be.

For example, I've always found the argument that certain voters (commonly poor white working-class) who vote for small-government are voting against their own economic interests to be rather interesting from a psych perspective. I'm a libertarian so I don't put much faith in the idea, but I think that issue could be traced back to the concept of locus of control. Voting for larger social spending might benefit them financially, but it also means accepting the belief that control over their life is externalized.

The alternative--that control is internalized or even just the perception that it's internalized--is likely more palatable psychologically as a core self-evaluation, with a more beneficial influence on other CSEs (neuroticism, generalized self-efficacy, and self-esteem). That leads to better life satisfaction, and can contribute to later economic success according to the research.

Reality is a lot more nuanced than that, but perception is absolutely fundamental in terms of how it can affect personality.

Post reply on HN