Re:Ask HN: Writing Software – Is it boring or am I bored?
by gregjor on Saturday March 12, 2022 @06:15PM
(#30655964)
Reframing your question: “Boring” is not a quality of a thing or activity. You may experience boredom when writing software, or doing anything. It wouldn’t make sense to ask if an activity was “happy” or “angry,” only to ask why you have the emotional reaction to the activity.
Like anything else your work can make you feel bored, frustrated, happy, excited. Those reactions come from you, not from the activity.
Most programming work falls into the “boring feature implementation” category. It’s not inherently boring but can feel repetitive and unchallenging. Software systems tend to get more complex and brittle over time, that’s the nature of building something complex. Most code you and everyone else writes is not particularly novel or solving interesting problems, it doesn’t always feel creative, which can make all of us feel like the work is a treadmill.
Having worked writing code for 40 years I know the feeling you describe. To fight it I take pride in my craftsmanship, and pride in satisfied customers. I learn new things constantly. After a while the whole programming “industry” feels like a lot of more of the same, old ideas with new wrapping paper. You will find that software development isn’t really all that innovative, there’s very little actual new technology. It all seems new when you’re learning but eventually it’s more like driving a different car every week.
You can learn programming yourself and on the job, but don’t expect employers to spend a lot training you. You don’t need formal education but it will help to learn some fundamentals like algorithms and relational database theory.
Like anything else your work can make you feel bored, frustrated, happy, excited. Those reactions come from you, not from the activity.
Most programming work falls into the “boring feature implementation” category. It’s not inherently boring but can feel repetitive and unchallenging. Software systems tend to get more complex and brittle over time, that’s the nature of building something complex. Most code you and everyone else writes is not particularly novel or solving interesting problems, it doesn’t always feel creative, which can make all of us feel like the work is a treadmill.
Having worked writing code for 40 years I know the feeling you describe. To fight it I take pride in my craftsmanship, and pride in satisfied customers. I learn new things constantly. After a while the whole programming “industry” feels like a lot of more of the same, old ideas with new wrapping paper. You will find that software development isn’t really all that innovative, there’s very little actual new technology. It all seems new when you’re learning but eventually it’s more like driving a different car every week.
You can learn programming yourself and on the job, but don’t expect employers to spend a lot training you. You don’t need formal education but it will help to learn some fundamentals like algorithms and relational database theory.