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Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

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Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#341

Post by sevagh »

_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…

> 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 get more enjoyment whole-assing one thing than half-assing many, in my case. Not to say hobbies aren't cool - I know somebody that built an entire guitar starting from wood - but I'd rather spend that time going even further in my main thing. "Majoring in the minors" or whatever.

I hope it doesn't come across as some sigma grindset stuff, it's not that I suppress my urge to have fun hobbies - I just feel happier and more secure incrementally building on my main career than creating a new persona for an activity I'm indifferent to.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#342

Post by frenchy »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #321
eddd-ddde wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the tyranny of linters This is a take I don't think I've seen before. Is someone actually mad prettier is changing their single quotes to double quotes? Are they mad some line is breaking at some word? Certainly I've never been. I use linters / formatters even when I'm working solo because the mere concept of having to think where to break lines is meaningless disruption from the actual goals I have. If you _really…

Strict adherence to formatting rules can impair readability, yes. Before back-tick strings in JS, it was useful to employ both single/double quotes for strings -- you'd use one most of the time, and then if you needed to embed a bunch of that quotation mark in a string literal, you'd switch to the other one. 'my string' 'my other string' "insert values ('foo', 'bar', 'baaz')" A formatter with naive "single quotes onl…

The key point here is that the formatter has to be sufficiently advanced to know to do the right thing the vast majority of the time. Once it gets there, and once you've gotten used to the code it produces, it's better. Note that the "prettier" formatter will do the right thing in JS here, at least with the default config. It will even switch "\"string\"" to '"string"' for you.

Linting is a bit of a different beast, because linting includes changes to the code behavior itself, not just syntax. In JS there are so many footguns, that linting can often be pretty involved/strict. I think most of the people who don't like linting in JS either aren't aware of the footguns, or don't do very much code review and haven't worried themselves much with "what sort of bizare and unusual ways can this fail" sort of a thing.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#343

Post by Sevii »

eddd-ddde wrote: post #286
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…

> the tyranny of linters This is a take I don't think I've seen before. Is someone actually mad prettier is changing their single quotes to double quotes? Are they mad some line is breaking at some word? Certainly I've never been. I use linters / formatters even when I'm working solo because the mere concept of having to think where to break lines is meaningless disruption from the actual goals I have. If you _really…

If you use linters without auto formatters you are choosing tedium.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#344

Post by AlexandrB »

skyfaller wrote: post #265
colecut wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 knowin…

Don't dwell on it too much. I thought the same thing when I was younger - had no interest in my parent's hobbies - but eventually they came back around as I got older and I realized I actually knew more about plants & plumbing than I thought.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#345

Post by underlipton »

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...

Gaming is cheap, has low space and physical set-up requirements, and holds loads of potential for creativity, self-expression, and positive socializing. The FGC in particular embodies this.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#346

Post by taysix »

knighthack wrote: post #335

As a lawyer, I find the law (which is supposedly 'logical' and 'rational') to be highly absurd at times. It's unavoidable, given that the law heavily involves humans. I am in part drawn to software development and programming, because it's logical and comparatively rigid (at least programming itself is, if you take away the environment/ecosystem/cults that develop around the idiosyncracies of different languages). I…

You are correct to a point. Programming is not absurd until you involve the humans! Your end users will end up driving you crazy.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#347

Post by AlexandrB »

vbezhenar wrote: post #169
tonetegeatinst wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security student here. Just wanted to say that while not everyone appreciates the firmware programming at such a low level....it is truly a dark art to me and I find it really interesting and always want to learn more.

Here my take. Not a pro, but still might find useful. 1. Learn basics of electricity, learn to use oscilloscope, logic analyzer. You don't necessary need to have knowledge to design complex PCBs (that's a separate skill and not easily attainable) but you need to be able to understand existing design on high-level and do some debugging. For example you wrote code which does some SPI to talk to some device but it does…

> 3. Learn to read data sheets.

Learn to read documentation in general. It's shocking how many people seem incapable of finding answers that are in official documentation but not on Stack Overflow.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#348

Post by bumby »

vbezhenar wrote: post #115
vincnetas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you know, at the end there should be someone who is cleaning the toilets and taking out garbage. You eating the cake and having it is a bit selfish.

Just because someone's cleaning the toilet doesn't mean that everyone must struggle. Yes, life's not fair to everyone, some people starve right now, while other throw away kilograms of food. Some people clean toilets while other people were born with gold spoon in their mouth and will enjoy whatever they want for the rest of their lives. Daring to work at place that does not suck is not the worst offender to the worl…

>Daring to work at place that does not suck is not the worst offender

But there is something to be said that some people are born into situations that force them to adopt a very risk adverse posture. If you don’t have any safety net, “daring to work at a place that does not suck” takes on a different risk profile and doesn’t necessarily generalize well as a strategy.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#349

Post by jimbokun »

mbeddedartistry wrote: post #302
jimbokun wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you choose to add whitespace to your code is not a meaningful outlet for creativity. Linters are a great tool for eliminating bike shedding. I don't think wood working per se gives you more flexibility than building software. It's wood working as an individual, not part of a team, so you can make your own decisions and not answer to anyone. If you were a one man software consultant you would have the same amount…

As a one man software consultant, I just want to point out that you are working with clients, in their systems, on their problems. You provide advice, they make the decisions they deem best for their company. You get to choose the problem spaces and teams, which is a degree of autonomy. But it is not quite so free as “making your own decisions and not answering to anybody.”

If you want to sell your woodwork you would have similar issues.

Re: Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

#350

Post by _yb2s »

culopatin wrote: post #262
colecut wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Awesome. I usually have luck with things like this, but seem to have no gift for welding. I could never get a clean bead from my cheap welder, and ended up even taking a community college welding class... the instructor could lay a clean bead with my welder, but I couldn't and eventually decided to just pay professionals to weld for me when my hobbies require it. I still can't tell what I was doing wrong. I even made an exhaust system for my car, but the welds were so bad it leaked a lot.

Nowadays, I'll set everything up, cut/buy the metal, etc. and usually for under $100 have someone come over and do the actual welding for me.

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