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Re:Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer? by TheCoelacanth on Monday February 01, 2016 @01:04PM (#11013711)
Odd that you would pick lumberjack as an example since that is a job where mistakes frequently do kill people.
Re:Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer? by amag on Monday February 01, 2016 @04:45PM (#11015741)
Yeah, I know, I realized that as I wrote it, but I guess I like to be out in the woods and do some heavy labor.

A bit of a simplification maybe, but as a lumberjack there are N+2 moving parts you need to care about, the saw, the tree and N coworkers in the proximity (N < 10) (if there's a moose and I catch it with my falling tree, it doesn't count as an accident, it counts as a bonus). With software there are thousands of moving parts and you can be pretty sure that no matter the amount of testing and code-reviewing, the parts will move in new unexpected ways once they reach the customers. Besides as a lumberjack when you leave work you leave work. You only have to worry about not killing someone during your working hours.