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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)

#71

Post by bumbada »

For me programming is all of those but also boring and frustrating and gets on my way to get things done.

Creating things nobody ever have done before is one of the deepest feelings you can feel in this life when you have done that, but also is terrifying emotion while you are doing it.

Like a chemical reaction, for something to be deeply satisfying from an emotional point of view you first need to give the system enough energy for the reaction to happen.

It requires intense focus, that is deciding not to do other things, which is painful. It is slow, which is frustrating. The work that could not be automated is boring. It is very expensive if you hire others to help you, and involve a tremendous risk if after all the work, it doesn't work out.

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

#72

Post by jrowen »

Something I sometimes think about in this vein: how many lines of code, written by how many people, in how many different times and places, are traversed on your computer every second?

It's kind of mind-blowing to me, and I can't think of anything else that works like that. It would be like if, when building a new house, you built it around an existing house, and continued to add layer after layer, and generations later the original house was still in constant use and supporting all the rest.

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

#73

Post by beaconstudios »

carlmr wrote: post #63
throwawayboise wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Not interesting, not depressing, just neutral. The absence of feelings sounds exactly like depression.

Depression is a bit more complex than that though. You can be emotionally neutral if you're just not strongly affected by what you're doing, it's probably the default state if you've done something for a while. I'm emotionally neutral when I brush my teeth.

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

#74

Post by abc_lisper »

burntoutfire wrote: post #41
ianmcgowan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wild ass guess would be one of: a) some high frequency trading algo, b) ray tracing/collision detection in popular game engines, c) the inner loop of google's spider, d) something common to mobile devices (maybe something in wifi or cell service?), or (most likely) e) the bitcoin hash algo. It makes for an interesting "how many manholes in Manhattan" interview question, and how you could possibly quantify your gue…

I'd add TCP stack in Linux (kernel). Should be hammered constantly on servers of the world and also gets lots of usage on smartphones and IoT stuff.

Nope. IO would be orders of magnitude less than computation

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

#75

Post by 7usueudud »

I never know how to answer coworkers when they ask what motivates me because, frankly, I think all the romanticism is just a childish fad that you have to play along with if you want people to assume the best of you. My usual answer is always something vague like "there's just something magical about them. I feel like an artificer." It wouldn't be so annoying but I constantly meet people who insist they just can't work that day because they don't have whatever synonym they've chosen for inspiration and meanwhile all I can think is "Or you could get over it and finish like a god damn professional". As a very mercenary person who's happy to hone a skill simply for the money I can't wait until there's enough people in software that we can start firing the profitable children finally.

I think this is just an American thing though because on the occasions I've met with partners from other countries, especially basically anywhere in SEA, I've noticed people act a lot more like adults. Personally I blame San Fransisco.

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

#76

Post by ljm »

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

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

#77

Post by ericd »

brmgb wrote: post #34

While I somewhat admire the author feelings, as a direct answer to the chosen title, I have to say I don't share them at all. I view programming with a mix of indifference and boredom and the sad few years I had to do it as a job are easily the less fulfilling of my life. If I had to sum up my feelings regarding programming, I would say it is: - a lot of uninteresting busy work; - intellectually mostly unchallenging.…

Maybe the thing you were working on wasn’t interesting enough to you? If I’m working on something really hard that I think is cool, the intermediate steps are a joyful rush when they work out. If I’m working on something like pulling data from yet another endpoint, not so much. Might be worth looking around for problems that actually excite you.

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

#78

Post by psalminen »

3princip wrote: post #65

I've found being too attached to code is a recipe for frustration in the workplace. You code something elegant, simple, dare I say beautiful and inevitably it will be butchered by new product requirements, business needs, that quick hack to satisfy a client or more generally uncaring colleagues who are looking to get their job done as quickly as possible. Perhaps romantic aspects could only be achieved when there are…

This reminded me of something that happened last week. I had written some code I found absolutely beautiful, then had to delete an hour later since the customer's requirements had changed. Personally, I find these situations disheartening but it's never frustrated me.

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

#79

Post by elliottkember »

I think know what happens here. We become disconnected from the real-life output of what we do. It becomes abstract. If you're like me, you started off making stuff for yourself and it was a thrill to put it live and know that people could see it. Now I think we all build stuff for others, because that's where the real money is.

In short, a hobby turns into a job and stops being fun. But I've found ways to bring programming into my hobbies and that's been life-changing!

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