Don’t Pursue Programming if You Aren’t Passionate About It

Post by HashHishBang » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 10:59 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #60

pc86 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the alternative to always learning narrowing your knowledge to a small problem domain? It's not. The alternative is... taking a rest every once in a while.

Learning isn't a tedious process. It can be as simple as saying "hey, how does that work" or "what are you doing" to someone working. I think talking to people, or thinking through how things work is relaxing. Also there is no reason why you can't rest. We dedicate ~8hr/day of our lives to resting. We also get full days on weekends. We also get about 7-12hr/day for doing whatever we want while awake. In those 7-12hr…

Wow, disingenuous statement you made there.

>In those 7-12hr you can sit and stare into the idiot box and laugh when the talking heads tell you to laugh... >I watch a lot of TV but most of the TV I watch is "What If"

You can watch TV and be an idiot or you can watch the kind of TV I approve of and as such become a better human being.

I mean if you broaden the definition of learning to include watching sci-fi and pondering whatever social commentary you read into the script then great. I'm going to go learn super hard.

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Sat, Feb 11, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #73

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but that's based on wishful thinking. Very few people are lucky enough to have their passions overlap with a career that's marketable. What if your passion is woodworking? Making beautiful, detailed cabinets that sell for $16,000+ may sound profitable, but I took a class from a woodworker who did exactly that, and he said that the net pay after materials costs (which were less than $1000) came to about $7/hour…

Well said, though one small difference is that no one will call you at 2AM to work on their car / wait on another table / etc. Dev work is potentially stressful in ways most jobs aren't, which isn't to say that it isn't also very well compensated, too. Personally I'm content to like what I do without having that rise to the level of passion - and I don't realistically expect more from my mail carrier, my mechanic, my…

People will call you at 2AM if you're a plumber. Or a doctor. Or a dentist. Or a locksmith.

And sometimes you'll get stuck waiting tables on XMas because the restaurant you work for requires it.

Yes, it varies by job. But 2AM calls are hardly unique to programming.

FWIW I really do want a doctor that's passionate about medicine, for the same reason that I want my lead developer to be passionate: If it's "just a job" they may not be following current best practices, which do change rather rapidly.

To be honest, I think the "GP" doctor's days are numbered. A registered nurse with a really good AI medical reference would likely to a better job than the 80th percentile of doctors, maybe even match the 99th percentile. There's too much information that isn't in any doctor's head, and a GP is basically a human expert system. A really good AI expert system would do a better job, and a solid nurse following the directions could handle the human part of the interaction.

Re: Don’t Pursue Programming if You Aren’t Passionate About It

Re: Don’t Pursue Programming if You Aren’t Passionate About It