Re:How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
by gkop on Saturday February 20, 2021 @06:21PM
(#26209038)
This resonates and I would add, on the theme of managing complexity higher up in this sub thread, it’s rewarding to reduce entropy locally. Like, yes the complexity is overwhelming and a significant, even singular challenge — and also the individuals in the weeds have an opportunity to use creative means to subdue it to degree that is material to the sustainable success of their team, group, department, start up, etc..
Re:How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
by darkteflon on Saturday February 20, 2021 @07:49PM
(#26209715)
Great link. As someone who burned out on a first career for exactly the reason stated, this is advice that I wish I’d received when younger, and the advice I’ll give my kids when they’re old enough.
Trying to progress in your chosen craft when you find the actual challenge to be sheer tedium is deeply demoralising and can affect other aspects of your life. In my case it lead to feelings of helplessness and pointlessness.
Such a great link - states the problem succinctly and provides an excellent heuristic. Thanks for sharing.
Re:How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
by t8e56vd4ih on Saturday February 20, 2021 @06:00PM
(#26208848)
I also try to look at software development as some sort of brain jogging or solving puzzles because I actually tend to neither care about the actual product nor do I care for hyped up new technology.
Re:How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
by andrewflnr on Saturday February 20, 2021 @06:57PM
(#26209338)
That link deserves a top-level post.
Re:How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
by shagie on Saturday February 20, 2021 @07:30PM
(#26209569)
I've tossed it in the submit page. It was submitted once before, but didn't gain any traction then.
As an aside, it is interesting looking at the history of other submissions from the same author - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=uni.edu
Re:How can you not be romantic about programming? (2020)
by andrewflnr on Saturday February 20, 2021 @07:48PM
(#26209710)
I gave it an updoot, so here's hoping for better this time.
Its short, only a few short paragraphs - but it has one key piece that I've found myself oft quoting to people:
> Maybe this is what people mean when they tell us to "find our passion", but that phrase seems pretty abstract to me. Maybe instead we should encourage people to find the hard problems they like to work on. Which problems do you want to keep working on, even when they turn out to be harder than you expected? Which kinds of frustration do you enjoy, or at least are willing to endure while you figure things out? Answers to these very practical questions might help you find a place where you can build an interesting and rewarding life.
> I realize that "Find your passion" makes for a more compelling motivational poster than "What hard problems do you enjoy working on?" (and even that's a lot better than "What kind of pain are you willing to endure?"), but it might give some people a more realistic way to approach finding their life's work.
--
I enjoy software development - and I do so because I enjoy solving those problems. To me, software development is like being paid to solve sudoku puzzles all day long (and yes, I watch cracking the cryptic from time to time)... well, at least when I'm not in meetings.
One of the important skills that I now realize that the dreaded math classes that I disliked (integrations and eigenvectors - ugh) was about the skill of continuing to solve the problem rather than giving up (and searching for the answer). Yes, there's a place for people who go to the back of the book or Stack Overflow for the solution - but many haven't learned the hard skill of continuing to solve the problem when its not easy.