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Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

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Re: Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

#51
post #31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The longer the distance traveled the more you buy per trip. It's universal foraging behavior.

That explains why the mega store doesn't want a local shop but not why there is no local shop.

I think the assumption, which is so basic that other commenters don't bother to mention it, is that every family has two cars. Suburbs in US are car-oriented to the extreme. Having a car changes shopping habits, because you can bring back much more things with you in a single trip to shop.

Re: Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

#54
post #33

Yesterday I posted a comment about being careful about how we try to bring people into programming and making sure that we encourage people to openly and honestly examine themselves for whether this is something they want to do, and not just thoughtlessly grease the slide into "programming" for everybody. [1] This is the sort of thing I meant. Dig back into the first post and it's clear that this person was very inte…

[deleted]

Re: Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

#56
post #9

It's funny to see this stuff go full-circle. My parents left the city in the early 90's to move to a small WI farm in the middle of nowhere (15min to get to a town of 5000 people). I can see the appeal of a simpler life. But the funny thing is, as a kid, I hated it. My parents got tired of the suburbs, I longed for it. They longed for simplicity, I longed for convenience. I hated the idea of having to drive long dist…

I grew up in the suburbs and hated it. I hated the idea of having to go long distances to get milk and eggs. I'm happy now in a city centre.

I grew up in the city. As I got older I realized that I didn't want my children to have to deal with the dirt, crime, rats, and noise that I had to deal with when I was growing up. Hopefully, they will appreciate the things I didn't have as a kid. A backyard, nice neighbors, low crime,and better schools.

Re: Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

#57
post #28

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and this post definitely gives me some motivation. I'm a programmer who loves to code and build stuff, learning new programming languages and frameworks, discussing about architecture, etc. I love shipping new features and making customers happy. BUT inside of me a desire has been growing to go back to the roots, to live a life closer to the nature. I feel the need to spend…

I would be interested in something like this as well.

Re: Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

#58
post #4

I've seen these before - someone leaves it all for the simple life. This is the first time I've seen the added benefit of being able to spend a lot more time with family. To me, that's one of the most compelling reasons to do something like this.

Many of them end up going back to the not-so-simple life in a few years so I'm hesitant to read too much into an early account like this.

Worked for Thoreau.

Re: Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Midwest, suburbs are designed and developed around the car and the "local shops" are generally located in a series of strip malls off the major roads. On the coasts and in denser populated areas, there seems to be a renewed push for more walk-able areas, public transit and such though.

I'll tell you the real, but awful, reason why we have such restrictive zoning in the U.S. The idea behind zoning is to make sure that different classes and races don't have to see each other if they don't want to. Putting commercial retail in a residential area would give outsiders an excuse to be there. The whole "white flight" from the cities has left it's mark on zoning ever since the 1960s. IMHO, this is also the…

> IMHO, this is also the reason for really bad public transit.

This is an undisputed fact, as people in those communities will readily protest the "crime train" coming through their neighborhoods.[1][2]

[1]: http://lewwaters.com/2012/05/22/light-rail-likely-to-raise-v...

[2]: http://larslarson.com/would-you-trust-your-kid-on-the-crime-...

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