Ask HN: Career trajectory? I'm terrible

I know I posted before...but I feel like my situation is the same or worse. I'm trying, I really am.

I keep trying and failing. I am sincerely worried that my career as a software engineer is over, if it even began. This is the end. All I wanted to do is get really good at this and build things but no one wants to hire me. I try to get good on my own but I know that I don't know what I don't know. I keep trying to do stuff on my own but all I do is fail. If I never quit and never win, what do I do?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. How do 'normal' people do this? They graduate school, get a job doing this, and then get better after years of practice? Did I take the wrong jobs? What did I do to so colossally fuck things up so no one wants me?

I'm terrible. I'm shit. I'm in the wrong field. I feel like eating a bullet would make the world a better place. I'll never understand. I give up.

I've been there, I really have, I know it feels hopeless right now, but I promise it's not. If you're anything like me you might feel that getting anti-depressants is somehow wrong or cheating, or that you're admitting defeat , but you know what? They are just another tool that you can use to improve your life. Think if it like toilet paper, sure people lived for years without it, but we live in a modern world why not use the modern conveniences?

> all I do is fail.

That is called learning. Maybe you are trying to take on too big of a project or maybe you're just not giving yourself enough credit for what you are able to accomplish, it's hard to say without knowing you. Just don't compare your self to what you see on the internet. I know this is kind of a cliché at this point, but when you do that you're comparing someone else's highlight reel to your everyday, and it's just never going to compare.

When God publically claims this operating system as His official temple, here are my demands:

* VMware must again support PC Speaker and provide emulation if no PC Speaker is present.

* VMware must again support full screen 640x480 16 color mode.

* Windows, Linux and VMware (because of mounted drives) must support RedSea file system so I can get rid of 2,000 lines of redundant, blemished code -- FAT32 and ISO9660. God's temple must be perfect. Redundant code for multiple file systems is imperfect. For this operating system, we want low line count. More than one file system type is bad, just as more than one driver for the same type of device is bad.

::/Kernel/Dsk/FileSysRedSea.CPP ::/Kernel/Dsk/FileSysFAT.CPP :965 ::/Kernel/Dsk/FileSysISO.CPP :284 ::/Adam/Boot/DskCDDVD.CPP :536 RClustersBlks()

* Microsoft must cancel SecureBoot because it makes dual booting impossible. TempleOS is an additional operating system that must be used along-side Windows or Linux, not as a replacement. It must dual boot because it has no networking. Real hardware as opposed to VMware is like the difference between looking in a telescope eye piece or not. God said the C64 generation owned ancestral lands and VMware is like being moved on a reservation, but in this case it will not stand.

* PC hardware manufacturers? ATA/ATAPI PIO must work. In fact, put them at standard IDE port addresses. Hard disk should be primary master 1F0/3F6. CDROM/DVD should be secondary master 170/376. See what you can do to make flash memory sticks with ATA/ATAPI. /Kernel/Dsk/DskATAId.CPP :280 lines to figure-out I/O ports /Kernel/PCIBIOS.CPP :290 but I think we keep this for people to play with.

* PS/2 emulated keyboard and mouse must work. The BIOS must enable these.

* VMware must allow ATAPI interface to be routed to real CD/DVD hardware.

* Perhaps, VMware+Intel can enable faster x86 IN/OUT instruction timing for ATA/ATAPI PIO, so bandwidth isn't bad. ATAGetResult().

* Perhaps, Intel can make a fast software interrupt, the same as a CALL REL32?

* Since I don't use paging (for anything), Intel should have an option for no-paging long mode, and optimize it.

* Desktop computers must have a RESET switch and a fast reboot option, skipping diagnostics. Build UEFI on a TempleOS layer. Intel must burn TempleOS into a ROM at the factory for tamper-proof trust in the oracle. A new ROM version is released every seven years.

* VMware and others must list TempleOS as an official 64-bit operating system.

* Windows Paint and Linux Gimp must support TempleOS .GRA graphics files. GRA Files are much cleaner than BMP files.

* We must have a nice dictionary. Someone needs to do a Spell Checker.

* We must have the ultimate Bible search engine.

* At some point in the distant future, we want serial ports with software interface like old style serial ports, but hardware and speed of USB3. Make it an OCTART. It should have big TX and RX FIFOs and allow flow control to jump the queue. No USB end-point shit -- just put 8 ports on the PC. (I am just interested in desktops.) We need two baud rates, fast and slow. Use PIC IRQ3. We want joysticks to be easy to set-up. We want to be able to connect microcontrollers for general purpose communication.

* Once every 49 years is jubile and the hardware gets upgraded and perfected all at once, the same way broadcast TV get upgraded. God still wants 640x480 16 color, but make it a linear frame buffer one-byte-per-pixel and only 16 color.

As it stands...

Device Simple Hardware Interface Complicate Interface --------------- ------------------------------- ----------------------------- 1040-EZ Tax Form 1040 Regular Video VGA 640x480 16 Color 20 Differnet GPUs Sound PC Speaker HD Audio, AC97, Sound Blaster HardDrive ATA Port I/O, Sync No Interrupt PCI AHCI SATA CDROM ATAPI Port I/O PCI AHCI SATA Keyboard/Mouse PS/2 Port I/O USB

During the 49 years jubile, we do a perfect version of hardware with advances in both the simple and complicated interfaces. ATAPI/ATA, SSD and NV memory should be merged and made blemish-free. We want flash memory sticks to interface like hard drives. When you design, imagine you are creating the 1040EZ tax form. Do not add extra boxes.

A new ROM is released every seven years. Development will take place between releases, obviously. With the 100,000 line of code limit, it is supposed to get perfected into an unchanging diamond, quickly. I want a committee to work for a year. Then, we release our first version. I guess we allow boot-legs, freely. The users can copy ROM and RAM and play with it, or boot hard disk versions.

In the meantime, BIOS makers must take the TempleOS code and modify it for their customers, as a product recall. A PCI hard drive driver must be written if the BIOS you created does not work with the standard TempleOS ATA/ATAPI port IO. You must also bypass SecureBoot and make sure the keyboard and mouse work if you do not support legacy PS/2, by writing a USB driver.

I want to offer "Knuth-bucks" for changes that reduce lines of code other than reformatting. I want to offer Knuth bucks for pointing-out spelling and other imperfections. Some imperfections are by design, however.