For me personally, there's no dilemma. I was landed a pretty good, high-paying job after showing my pretty sophisticated pet projects I made for the fun of it. In my free time, I keep making pet projects out of "curiosity, enlightenment, and purity", and if some have potential, I showcase them to the employer and they're integrated into the product, or as a dev tool. Builds a good resume, too. Maybe I'm lucky that my employer is open to new ideas/projects. So, both the angel and the devil are satisfied :)
I just want to code (2023)
91–100 of 183 posts
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#92Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs? What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?
Sure. I used to enjoy playing the Sims until I had that gut realisation that I was trying to get them to grind out better lives, when I should just spend that time doing it for myself.
I also bought Shenzhen I/O, because the idea of being able to program in a game seems fun. But after reading more, I didn't end up playing it because it would involve too much study of how the in-game computers work, and I'd get much more long-term satisfaction from studying real assembly languages etc.
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#93Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs? What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?
[deleted]
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#94i feel this deep, it's way too easy to forget why i started coding in the first place
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#95For me personally, there's no dilemma. I was landed a pretty good, high-paying job after showing my pretty sophisticated pet projects I made for the fun of it. In my free time, I keep making pet projects out of "curiosity, enlightenment, and purity", and if some have potential, I showcase them to the employer and they're integrated into the product, or as a dev tool. Builds a good resume, too. Maybe I'm lucky that my…
Do you keep ownership over those tools when they're integrated into your employer's product? What are the terms on your employment contract? This can get muddy.
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#96Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs? What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?
When I was younger, early in my career, I coded to learn more about what I was doing at work. Pure career progression.
The older I get, the less I care about career progression and the more I allow myself to just use code to explore thoughts or ideas.
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will preface this by saying that, I decided to stop pursuing a job as a software developer because my 2 years of work experience mean nothing in the job market. Now that I ended up finding a job as a waiter (of all things) I finally enjoy learning new things again. Before, I would get chronically stressed researching the job market, gathering keywords from job openings, consuming Udemy courses at 2x speed, using AI…
In all seriousness, being able to pinpoint what is causing the possible stress / load and making choices to get rid of that is pretty amazing, props! Though as for the job market, I’m sure the AI hype will blow over but I don’t think it’ll remain silent for long, there’ll be another nonsensical trend within reach. Tech needs to keep innovating to keep investors happy and keep investing. That’s why it’s going this AI…
blockchained api for AI with anti-mushroom (non-fungible) recursion.
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#98Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs? What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?
>Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs?
I absolutely do. Money and power is a great motivator. I don't feel bad about any of it. I took my shot and continue to do so.
>What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?
It was not. I made some good side money. I always joke that I program to feed my computer habit. The benefit of it is you actually code like you are making a product, and there is usually a big skill difference between someone coding for fun and someone coding to make an actual sellable product; it's the 80/20 rule. That last 80% is what separates the good from the great. Like Jobs said, "Real artists ship."
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#99Do many people hobby code with that entrepreneur mindset thing? Or sit down to play guitar thinking they want to make a hit and feeling bad if they just noodle some cover songs? What a miserable existence that must be. How do you get that way? Should we blame LinkedIn or what is it?
Coding is a small but very fun part of my business. I code for fun because I can afford to, but most people need to put bread on the table, so they must remain competitive.
Re: I just want to code (2023)
#100I have no idea why they mention coding. It is the same in any kind of job. You can bake cakes for fun, make music for fun, write poems, novels, play chess for fun, practice sports, grow potatos ... At a certain stage, you realize that in order to be able to do only that job, you must make someone pay you for it. You must do it in a way (or in a volume) which makes others happy. The fact that it makes you happy is not…
I disagree that coding for fun and making it a product is 5-10% difference. I would say it's closer to 500-1000%. I coded a lot of tools for myself, for productivity or for fun. Currently I'm very quick in doing that thanks to LLMs, it's definitely not vibe coding, althoug there is a lot of code generated. As these tools serve only me, I may not care about code quality, about bugs, about someone elses data loss, about security, GDPR, different devices, mobiles, screen sizes, platforms, etc. I don't have to support "users" as an entity at all in my apps, it can be all hidden behind VPN, so i don't need auth. I have so many little issues in my apps so I know I can not for example click this and that in rapid succession, or drag this thing out of this container etc. It's 100% fine for me, it would absolutely needed to be fixed for other users. I would need something like a user manual, marketing page, payment processing? I don't get any support e-mails and angry users. There are many compromises that I can make with little value loss if I code just for me as compared to trying to offer a service for people and ask for money.