12 ms·

How to Have Healthy Relationships as a Developer

226 points by karlmcguire 10y ago

bowmessage 10y ago
What's it like to date / be married to another programmer? I've always wondered if this would help or hinder the relationship.
- tzakrajs 10y ago
  I can tell you from experience that if you do not put effort into remaining cooperative peers, then it can get pretty ugly with each person attempting to earn respect in a more competitive way (that turns out looking like braggadocio to the other party). I am sure that isn't everyone's experience, but it was mine and I am trying my damnest to never fuck that up again because when your significant other(s) are programmers (especially in your domain), you can express yourself fully and the points in this article are essentially moot.
- ramblenode 10y ago
  I would love to see this as an Ask HN.
  - galfarragem 10y ago
    By experience, the answer is quite easy: when both have the same occupation it gets boring very fast. It's much more enriching having the opportunity to learn about a different field than coming home and continue to listen about the same. Rationally I would never pick somebody from the same field as me.
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
      yes and no... my fiancee is an internal doctor, and let me tell you, we have it damn easy behind the desks and computers. nothing really important at stake, no risk of killing somebody and ending up in jail because of some simple mistake under heavy stress, after 10 hours at work, say at 5 am. seeing people dying and suffering will change you, especially the young ones. a lot of those stories is not something you actually want to listen to after hard day at work...
      - Chris2048 10y ago
        > nothing really important at stake Speak for yourself..
    - toyg 10y ago
      > when both have the same occupation it gets boring very fast. It gets boring even when your occupations are so alien to each other, that there's little you can share beyond bog-standard office gossip.
      - galfarragem 10y ago
        If the occupations are so alien to each other probably you wouldn't be attracted by that person to start with. If your SO is eg. an hairdresser probably it is boring but if her occupation is something you would like to know more about, it's not. As an anecdote, my ex was making a thesis in International Relations and at the same time she was taking a Spanish Philology course. I can say to you that I learnt a LOT just by being nearby.
      - madelinecameron 10y ago
        Eh, we just don't talk about it. My fiance works in a t-shirt printing shop and I work as a developer. I enjoy hearing about his work, he enjoys hearing about mine but we know neither of us could do what the other does.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      Both my wife and I are scientists (neither of us are working as scientists) and I love this. It is fantastic to be able take a background knowledge base for granted.
      - galfarragem 10y ago
        Probably what you like is that she is smart enough to understand what you say. That doesn't imply that she has to be a scientist.
        danieltillett 10y ago
        While I do love that my wife is a smart, I think her being a scientist is more than just this. I have a base of assumed knowledge that makes conversations much more enjoyable.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
      Or just don't spend too much time talking about work? I find there are plenty of other things to talk about. :)
    - thirdsun 10y ago
      That strikes me as a very general and blanket assumption. To me the correct answer, as so often, seems to be...it depends. Mostly on how both parties handle the situation of having very similar interests, which might as well be a blessing.
- jleehey 10y ago
  My wife and I are both programmers, and as a bonus we also work at the same company :) We may have an easier situation as our specialties are different (I'm a mobile developer and she works server side) but we have never really had any issues at all. As long as both sides keep open minds to information and drop any defensive attitudes, it works out great. Basically, when talking about programming and work, we treat each other as a resource and colleagues rather than a romantically involved couple. It has also made us better programmers as we have any extra point of view when tackling our problems.
- petewailes 10y ago
  Hinders. What you're trying to find is someone who's got similar goals/ambitions for how they want to live their life in future, and who has a good sized surface area overlap with you on how to spend their free time now. Dating someone in the same field gives greater likelihood of finding that, but there's other ways to do it too. People who went to similar schools, people in related fields, people who hang out at similar social events... Your work is one field where you can find overlap, but there's lots of others. My fiancé works in a completely different field, but we have similar preferences in how we spend our spare time. I'd have never met her if I restricted myself to programmers (she's in conservation and events; an odd mix to say the least).
- playing_colours 10y ago
  It's pretty OK for my wife and me. The pros are we can easily talk about work, questions and issues. It's nice, that we can go deep into details and we don't need to try to explain what we do like to a 10 y.o. person. We can share some practices. I am backend focused, and my wife is a frontend developer so we can learn something new from each other. We can both understand that we we sometimes to code at home. Another pro is we don't have a big gap in salaries being more or less well paid (in Germany). The drawbacks are that you are quite limited in scope, you don't learn something new outside of your programming domain. The mindsets are pretty similar: sometimes I think my wife is too logical, and we have a similar way of thinking after many years in the profession, which can be a bit boring.
- thisone 10y ago
  from the responses it sounds like there is no one answer for everyone with this. It depends on the person that you are and the person that your partner is.
- superice 10y ago
  It's both a blessing and a curse. As a bisexual man in a relationship with another male software developer the way I understand my partner is something that trumps my wildest dreams. On the other hand, it's very easy to let software development get the upper hand in the relationship, especially when your day consists of waking up, going to work together, literally working back to back at the same startup for 9 to 14 hours, and then going home to sleep. I do feel knowing what my partner does all day makes me connect to him better on an emotional level as well, which is a really nice bonus. I'd say in general it helps the relationship, but it does not come without pitfalls.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  My wife and I are both devs. It's, for the most part, no different than any other relationship; you get out of it what you put into it. One thing I did (am still trying to?) learn is that sometimes she wants me to be a rubber duck instead of actually helping her solve a problem. I try to anticipate a point in the conversation when I can ask which I'm supposed to be.
pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
I sometimes wonder how much my life would be different if I never got into this. Programming is such a big part of my life now. I frequently consider how much of my brain power goes to programming; and I have to say it's about 20%. If there were five of me, one of them would basically be a computer. I wonder what that fifth of my brain would have been thinking about for the past 10 years, if not programming. Maybe it would have been dancing, or painting, or soccer. Instead of context switching into thinking like a computer, it'd be how to move my body around or how to meld colors together. I feel like that would lead to a much more fulfilling life. I used to program for fun in middle school. It was probably halfway through high school when I stopped programming for fun. It was always that little nagging voice in the back of my head: Play it safe. Programming is an in-demand field! You're good at it! Look at all of that awesome shit you made. At this point, the only "hobby" I have is programming. I don't even know what else I like anymore.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  I think it's easy to imagine that we could have been something else; but I suspect that programming, or something substantially similar to it, is probably the only thing you'd be happy with.
  - heurist 10y ago
    Personally, I always felt that if I'd been born 50 years earlier law, architecture, and mathematics would have been good alternatives. I've also been taking painting classes for a couple years and have found great logical structure and consistency in it despite the creative freedom it provides. Art is art!
- kayman 10y ago
  In what other field do you have so much control and freedom to create? No matter how much someone directs you on how to program something, you always have that little bit of wiggle room to add your own creativity to it. Programming is like art. The coding is the medium. The thoughts and solutions, when it all works together, just feels right. My job when it goes into stuff other than programming, I find myself coding at night to feel that structure, control, creativity and freedom all rolled into one. Most other fields don't offer that.
KaiLe1 10y ago
One of the healthy relationships to have with other people is to unionize and share experiences. It is kind of sick to hear about programmers pulling 60+ hour weeks digging the grave of the fellow next to them because they are not culture-fit or good programmers by their standards. The establishment knows this, that's why it squeezes out of you every penny it can get, getting you to feel that you are the greatest programmer of all. But to be in a meaningful serious union and fight for your rights means you have to do a lot of soul searching, throw away your smugness and self-righteousness (about how great developer you are) which is not compatible with the capitalist nonsense we face everyday. I am sure I will get flagged because a lot of readers come from the "Valley" where money is god but don't really care.
- entilzha 10y ago
  I couldn't imagine consistently working 60+ hour weeks. Occasionally for deadlines which nearly always are big presentations I'll work up to around 50 hours, but its rare and definitely not sustainable.
- Etheryte 10y ago
  Was going to upvote you for your other points, but then you came along with the "I'm sure I'll get flagged" nonsense.
  - alvarosm 10y ago
    sure
ryanbertrand 10y ago
Overall really simple changes to improve our daily life. This had me laughing: (No, changing your Vim colorscheme doesn’t count as a “different experience.”)
- tranv94 10y ago
  Same. Until I realized I've done that as a break from work/weekend activity ):
- jbb555 10y ago
  Ha, I broke off half way though thinking "oooh I should change my vim colorscheme!" Hehe
- FLUX-YOU 10y ago
  If you want to get freaky, install a powerline package
jakobegger 10y ago
I don't think this problem is unique to programmers. Everyone who works a lot can get into this situation. If you spend 60h a week doing anything, whether you code, or manage people, or lay pipes or sell houses or cut hair, you'll be so absorbed in your work that you can't imagine other people will understand all the intricacies of what you do; and frankly, in the time that's left of the week, one might just be too exhausted to spend quality time with friends and family...
ganesh_hobbeez 10y ago
When I look back, good times with family and friends brings happiness. :) When I look back at the bad program written, feel like 'Did I write this so studpidly?' brings sadness. :(
aadilmfarooqui 10y ago
That's a good tip to discuss the work with family when working at home on weekends especially, as they have no idea of the problems a developer faces when working remotely on weekends.
Kiro 10y ago
> Relationships are a key part of being happy Is this really true for everyone? I sacrificed my relationship because I prioritize my projects and I've never been happier. I can't imagine getting into another since it would mean compromises I'm not willing to make.
- skeletonjelly 10y ago
  Probably an implied "good" modifier in there. Good relationships are a key part of being happy. Bad relationships...not so much
  - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
    Ah... HN. Such a magical land, where people call adjectives modifiers.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      What else would you call them? Adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify verbs.
    - deepinthewoods 10y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_modifier https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_modifier
  - ams6110 10y ago
    I would disagree that this is the case for everyone. I think a small number of people are happier without relationships.
    - Kiro 10y ago
      Yes, I'm definitely one of those. I don't understand why people try to convince me otherwise.
    - skeletonjelly 10y ago
jdminhbg 10y ago
> Talk About Your Work I strongly disagree with this one, although I'm not sure if my reasoning is broadly or only personally applicable. The last thing I want to do at the end of a long day of work is recap what I did. Even in the best-case scenario of a day full of victories, it's just exhausting to try to relive all of them with the added burden of explaining the decade-plus knowledge base you'd need to understand why Problem X was so hard to solve. I'm much happier with a base of other interests to talk about after work with a non-programmer instead.
- khedoros 10y ago
  I know that my wife appreciates hearing some about how my day went. I don't go into any really deep detail, but talking about how hard a problem was and how good it feel to solve it, or venting about something stupid that a coworker did are things I've come to enjoy. The technical details and why it was hard to solve aren't the parts that matter.
  - jdminhbg 10y ago
    > I know that my wife appreciates hearing some about how my day went. I believe that. My girlfriend really pushes me occasionally about my day, and I think it's because she knows that talking about her day really helps her. I'm happy to listen for her, but I've just come to the conclusion that trying to recap things I've done makes me more stressed out, and the fifteen seconds of "no, I really don't want to talk about it" is worth it. And for what it's worth, having read back over that, I am not in a high-pressure job. I consult about thirty hours a week or so.
    - alvarosm 10y ago
      Well if you really must not talk about it because you're in a stressful situation... but it's not ideal.
    - douche 10y ago
      That's a classic male-female issue. Women, for whatever reason, are conditioned to need to talk about things to process them. Men are more likely to brood in silence instead. When I come home, I too would really rather not relive the last eight hours of fighting with broken hardware, broken tools, broken networks, and broken customers. Its time to put it out of mind, as best as can be done. I'd rather play with the dog, water the garden, and cook dinner.
rjbwork 10y ago
>Our brains automatically group similar memories together in order to save space. As developers, years can feel like weeks if we don’t actively pursue different experiences. This hit me hard. Feels like the years have just slipped on by since I graduated university. Not particularly sure how to stop it though...maybe a few more years and I can just take a few months off and travel or something?
- dasboth 10y ago
  Try going analogue, find a hobby that doesn't involve a computer (music, cooking, hiking etc.). I find if I do even a small amount of a few different activities in a day, it feels a lot more full. A day spent coding, then going home to cook dinner and read a book always feel better than a day spent coding, then going home to browse the internet or even work on a coding side project (if I get around to those, they're restricted to the weekend).
  - amelius 10y ago
    > Try going analogue, find a hobby that doesn't involve a computer (music, cooking, hiking etc.) I would suggest to find a hobby that involves other people.
    - VLM 10y ago
      Or rephrased, you're doing it wrong if those three normally group activity examples don't involve other people and you're an extrovert looking for relationships.
    - douche 10y ago
      Unless, of course, you don't particularly like having to be around other people. Hiking by yourself is glorious.
    - TheCapn 10y ago
      I would too. But that doesn't mean you can't take up a hobby that is done alone but shared with a club. I got into car work and joined my local auto club. We do meets, drives, and grab beers every once in a while and share experiences or things we've done. EDIT: Not to mention the social point of "I fucked up, who knows what they're doing and wants to share a case and fix this mess" I've been hired by a few friends-of-friends to build automation and although the coding and electrical is done at my little workstation there's a local maker group that I like to share my works with. I always recommend picking up a hobby that has tangible products. Gaming and Reading are all mind exercises. Doing something with your hands helps work the body and when you've worked at something for long enough its much more visual for how you've honed your craft. Its a different type of reward than coding is. I don't know if I can describe the feeling it gives but it's different somehow, and it's a good feeling to look down upon a physical creation with pride.
Jean-Philipe 10y ago
> Call your grandma, friend, dad, girlfriend, anyone A bit offtopic, but the author seems to assume you are a straight coder guy. This was probably not his intention though. Why not replace "girlfriend" by something more neutral, like "your better half"? Being inclusive doesn't cost much, really.
- spurgu 10y ago
  Umm, it's more like a figure of speech. Anyone (I hope) can make the connection that he's referring to a romantic partner.
- timwaagh 10y ago
  Wow
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
  Why not replace "grandma" with "grandparent" as well? I know I won't be calling my grandma any time soon, even if I wanted to!
- kraftman 10y ago
  Your comment seems to assume only straight coder guys can have girlfriends. The author is just giving examples of people you can talk to, if it just said 'Call your girlfriend' that would be different.
  - Jean-Philipe 10y ago
    No. I actually thought it, but I assumed the author would refer to straight guys as an audience. I might be wrong though. I didn't not make any assumptions about his actual audience, only about the author's perception.
    - alvarosm 10y ago
      making assumptions is racist. and sexist. and very much not PC. shame on you!
- 10y ago
owenversteeg 10y ago
Personally, I don't think that having healthy relationships as a developer is much different than having healthy relationships as anyone else. As with any other technical job, it can be hard to explain exactly what your job is, but a bit of humor and an ELI5-style explanation goes a long way. One thing specific to programmers is the ability to whip up a little program to help people. Someone spends an hour every day retyping lower-case data in uppercase? Take ten seconds and write them a program. Someone complains how they always forget to shut down their computer and waste electricity? Write them a widget to shut it down at 1am each night. When I take a bit of time to write programs for people I care about, people are usually very grateful and vastly overestimate the difficulty of whatever I just did. As always, relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/
- Rafert 10y ago
  Obligatory follow-up link to that xkcd: http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-or-bird/ http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-or...
- tranv94 10y ago
  Agreed. It's known that one can program outside of work for a hobby (like many other jobs), but treating it like it's special probably creates the rift some may experience
- karlmcguire 10y ago
  Author here, I agree to an extent. As I said in the "Spend Time With Them" section, a lot of developers also program as their hobby. In fact, you pretty much have to program in your free time in order to keep up with all the new paradigms and frameworks. Jobs that have been around a lot longer, like construction or accounting, allow you to just leave your work when you go home. In that way I think developers face a unique challenge. We all know how prevalent burn out is in the industry, it's tough making sure relationships don't burn out as well. Thanks for the feedback!
  - xkcd-sucks 10y ago
urbanxs 10y ago
Have dinners, travel and buy stuff - it is all you will ever get in life after all.
amelius 10y ago
This could be relevant: https://www.buzzworthy.com/research-shows-can-empathetic-analytical-time/ https://www.buzzworthy.com/research-shows-can-empathetic-ana...
gersh 10y ago
I don't think I really get how to have relationships. It seems a lot of developers fail bad at relationships. I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms. However, I think there is a greater cultural attack on technological professionals. I feel like we are devalued as some sort of machine that cranks out code. Many play into this as well. I don't think it is healthy.
- dasboth 10y ago
  I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms. Try seeking out people who also see beauty in maths and algorithms and you might have a better experience. Finding people who have similar values to you goes a long way in having good relationships (as long as you don't entirely limit yourself to like-minded people).
- munificent 10y ago
  > I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms. This statement is more accurate if you remove the comma. What you wrote makes a blanket claim about all people (which is highly unlikely to be true for even a majority). Without the comma, it's a useful heuristic for what kinds of people you should avoid so that you can have a more fulfilling circle of friends.
- TheCowboy 10y ago
  There is some evidence that developers are better at relationships. When it comes to marriage they have a relatively low divorce rate of around 10%. It can be partly confirmation bias that the worse relationship outcomes are most obvious to us. There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty in math and algorithms, because it's certainly there. But taken too far, it can become self-validating by judging other people as lacking value, and refusing to see beauty in other people with different interests. This might be part of what you view as an attack on technological professionals, where we're stereotyped as people with only an interest in computers/math and have no interest in actual people.
sakopov 10y ago
I read articles like this and always find it fascinating that none of them suggest simply stop doing what you do for work (or at least limit to a certain extent) and enjoy other things in life. You want to have a healthy life? Get away from the monitor and get outside. It's that simple no matter what you do.
daemonk 10y ago
This pretty much applies to any technical field. Good advice.
thanatropism 10y ago
LPT though: have friends at work but don't flirt with them. I had a really good friend at work for a while but it always had this flirty undercurrent. We both had SOs, but enjoyed the "office wife/husband" thing (my real wife actually knew about it and was not jealous). Anyway, the flirtationship thing makes you as vulnerable to criticism as an actual relationship, so the occasional sarcastic tirade or bad mood day really hurts. Long story short, we're not only no-longer-friends (this happen, I've worked at the same place for so long some friendships are cyclical); we can't talk to each other or work in the same open plan office. It's a small wonder no one's been fired. Ultimately the drama/good feeling ratio doesn't work out.
- fluxquanta 10y ago
  I would say your caution shouldn't only apply only to flirtatious relationships, but rather any interpersonal relationship at work that becomes too casual. I work in a small shop and was hired as the third developer, about 4 months after developer number two. Of course, Number 2 and I became friends pretty quickly and we would hang out outside of work on occasion. That is, until one day when some totally insignificant disagreement resulted in threats of physical violence against me. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy that, we never hung out again. I brought the comment up with management (the company owner) and as far as I can tell nothing came of it. Now, as our company and development staff has grown the owner has put this same guy in a managerial role that I have to answer to, and because of our history, it's becoming more difficult to stay productive in our interactions. In other words, friends in the workplace can be a good thing, but if it backfires, and especially if you're both candidates for advancement in the same department, the repercussions could have you polishing your resume.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    If you're a software developer, you shouldn't be staying in the same job more than a few years anyway. You'll get more pay by jumping around.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >LPT though: have friends at work but don't flirt with them. I'm a software engineer, and a hetero male. Why would I want to flirt with other men? I frequently wish I had gone into another career (probably medical) so I could try out this flirting with coworkers thing I keep hearing about.

226 points by karlmcguire 10y ago

What's it like to date / be married to another programmer? I've always wondered if this would help or hinder the relationship.

tzakrajs 10y ago
I can tell you from experience that if you do not put effort into remaining cooperative peers, then it can get pretty ugly with each person attempting to earn respect in a more competitive way (that turns out looking like braggadocio to the other party). I am sure that isn't everyone's experience, but it was mine and I am trying my damnest to never fuck that up again because when your significant other(s) are programmers (especially in your domain), you can express yourself fully and the points in this article are essentially moot.
ramblenode 10y ago
I would love to see this as an Ask HN.
- galfarragem 10y ago
  By experience, the answer is quite easy: when both have the same occupation it gets boring very fast. It's much more enriching having the opportunity to learn about a different field than coming home and continue to listen about the same. Rationally I would never pick somebody from the same field as me.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    yes and no... my fiancee is an internal doctor, and let me tell you, we have it damn easy behind the desks and computers. nothing really important at stake, no risk of killing somebody and ending up in jail because of some simple mistake under heavy stress, after 10 hours at work, say at 5 am. seeing people dying and suffering will change you, especially the young ones. a lot of those stories is not something you actually want to listen to after hard day at work...
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      > nothing really important at stake Speak for yourself..
  - toyg 10y ago
    > when both have the same occupation it gets boring very fast. It gets boring even when your occupations are so alien to each other, that there's little you can share beyond bog-standard office gossip.
    - galfarragem 10y ago
      If the occupations are so alien to each other probably you wouldn't be attracted by that person to start with. If your SO is eg. an hairdresser probably it is boring but if her occupation is something you would like to know more about, it's not. As an anecdote, my ex was making a thesis in International Relations and at the same time she was taking a Spanish Philology course. I can say to you that I learnt a LOT just by being nearby.
    - madelinecameron 10y ago
      Eh, we just don't talk about it. My fiance works in a t-shirt printing shop and I work as a developer. I enjoy hearing about his work, he enjoys hearing about mine but we know neither of us could do what the other does.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    Both my wife and I are scientists (neither of us are working as scientists) and I love this. It is fantastic to be able take a background knowledge base for granted.
    - galfarragem 10y ago
      Probably what you like is that she is smart enough to understand what you say. That doesn't imply that she has to be a scientist.
      - danieltillett 10y ago
        While I do love that my wife is a smart, I think her being a scientist is more than just this. I have a base of assumed knowledge that makes conversations much more enjoyable.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
    Or just don't spend too much time talking about work? I find there are plenty of other things to talk about. :)
  - thirdsun 10y ago
    That strikes me as a very general and blanket assumption. To me the correct answer, as so often, seems to be...it depends. Mostly on how both parties handle the situation of having very similar interests, which might as well be a blessing.
jleehey 10y ago
My wife and I are both programmers, and as a bonus we also work at the same company :) We may have an easier situation as our specialties are different (I'm a mobile developer and she works server side) but we have never really had any issues at all. As long as both sides keep open minds to information and drop any defensive attitudes, it works out great. Basically, when talking about programming and work, we treat each other as a resource and colleagues rather than a romantically involved couple. It has also made us better programmers as we have any extra point of view when tackling our problems.
petewailes 10y ago
Hinders. What you're trying to find is someone who's got similar goals/ambitions for how they want to live their life in future, and who has a good sized surface area overlap with you on how to spend their free time now. Dating someone in the same field gives greater likelihood of finding that, but there's other ways to do it too. People who went to similar schools, people in related fields, people who hang out at similar social events... Your work is one field where you can find overlap, but there's lots of others. My fiancé works in a completely different field, but we have similar preferences in how we spend our spare time. I'd have never met her if I restricted myself to programmers (she's in conservation and events; an odd mix to say the least).
playing_colours 10y ago
It's pretty OK for my wife and me. The pros are we can easily talk about work, questions and issues. It's nice, that we can go deep into details and we don't need to try to explain what we do like to a 10 y.o. person. We can share some practices. I am backend focused, and my wife is a frontend developer so we can learn something new from each other. We can both understand that we we sometimes to code at home. Another pro is we don't have a big gap in salaries being more or less well paid (in Germany). The drawbacks are that you are quite limited in scope, you don't learn something new outside of your programming domain. The mindsets are pretty similar: sometimes I think my wife is too logical, and we have a similar way of thinking after many years in the profession, which can be a bit boring.
thisone 10y ago
from the responses it sounds like there is no one answer for everyone with this. It depends on the person that you are and the person that your partner is.
superice 10y ago
It's both a blessing and a curse. As a bisexual man in a relationship with another male software developer the way I understand my partner is something that trumps my wildest dreams. On the other hand, it's very easy to let software development get the upper hand in the relationship, especially when your day consists of waking up, going to work together, literally working back to back at the same startup for 9 to 14 hours, and then going home to sleep. I do feel knowing what my partner does all day makes me connect to him better on an emotional level as well, which is a really nice bonus. I'd say in general it helps the relationship, but it does not come without pitfalls.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
My wife and I are both devs. It's, for the most part, no different than any other relationship; you get out of it what you put into it. One thing I did (am still trying to?) learn is that sometimes she wants me to be a rubber duck instead of actually helping her solve a problem. I try to anticipate a point in the conversation when I can ask which I'm supposed to be.

pikachu_is_cool 10y ago

I sometimes wonder how much my life would be different if I never got into this. Programming is such a big part of my life now. I frequently consider how much of my brain power goes to programming; and I have to say it's about 20%. If there were five of me, one of them would basically be a computer. I wonder what that fifth of my brain would have been thinking about for the past 10 years, if not programming. Maybe it would have been dancing, or painting, or soccer. Instead of context switching into thinking like a computer, it'd be how to move my body around or how to meld colors together. I feel like that would lead to a much more fulfilling life. I used to program for fun in middle school. It was probably halfway through high school when I stopped programming for fun. It was always that little nagging voice in the back of my head: Play it safe. Programming is an in-demand field! You're good at it! Look at all of that awesome shit you made. At this point, the only "hobby" I have is programming. I don't even know what else I like anymore.

microcolonel 10y ago
I think it's easy to imagine that we could have been something else; but I suspect that programming, or something substantially similar to it, is probably the only thing you'd be happy with.
- heurist 10y ago
  Personally, I always felt that if I'd been born 50 years earlier law, architecture, and mathematics would have been good alternatives. I've also been taking painting classes for a couple years and have found great logical structure and consistency in it despite the creative freedom it provides. Art is art!
kayman 10y ago
In what other field do you have so much control and freedom to create? No matter how much someone directs you on how to program something, you always have that little bit of wiggle room to add your own creativity to it. Programming is like art. The coding is the medium. The thoughts and solutions, when it all works together, just feels right. My job when it goes into stuff other than programming, I find myself coding at night to feel that structure, control, creativity and freedom all rolled into one. Most other fields don't offer that.

KaiLe1 10y ago

One of the healthy relationships to have with other people is to unionize and share experiences. It is kind of sick to hear about programmers pulling 60+ hour weeks digging the grave of the fellow next to them because they are not culture-fit or good programmers by their standards. The establishment knows this, that's why it squeezes out of you every penny it can get, getting you to feel that you are the greatest programmer of all. But to be in a meaningful serious union and fight for your rights means you have to do a lot of soul searching, throw away your smugness and self-righteousness (about how great developer you are) which is not compatible with the capitalist nonsense we face everyday. I am sure I will get flagged because a lot of readers come from the "Valley" where money is god but don't really care.

entilzha 10y ago
I couldn't imagine consistently working 60+ hour weeks. Occasionally for deadlines which nearly always are big presentations I'll work up to around 50 hours, but its rare and definitely not sustainable.
Etheryte 10y ago
Was going to upvote you for your other points, but then you came along with the "I'm sure I'll get flagged" nonsense.
- alvarosm 10y ago
  sure

ryanbertrand 10y ago

Overall really simple changes to improve our daily life. This had me laughing: (No, changing your Vim colorscheme doesn’t count as a “different experience.”)

tranv94 10y ago
Same. Until I realized I've done that as a break from work/weekend activity ):
jbb555 10y ago
Ha, I broke off half way though thinking "oooh I should change my vim colorscheme!" Hehe
FLUX-YOU 10y ago
If you want to get freaky, install a powerline package

jakobegger 10y ago

I don't think this problem is unique to programmers. Everyone who works a lot can get into this situation. If you spend 60h a week doing anything, whether you code, or manage people, or lay pipes or sell houses or cut hair, you'll be so absorbed in your work that you can't imagine other people will understand all the intricacies of what you do; and frankly, in the time that's left of the week, one might just be too exhausted to spend quality time with friends and family...

ganesh_hobbeez 10y ago

When I look back, good times with family and friends brings happiness. :) When I look back at the bad program written, feel like 'Did I write this so studpidly?' brings sadness. :(

aadilmfarooqui 10y ago

That's a good tip to discuss the work with family when working at home on weekends especially, as they have no idea of the problems a developer faces when working remotely on weekends.

Kiro 10y ago

> Relationships are a key part of being happy Is this really true for everyone? I sacrificed my relationship because I prioritize my projects and I've never been happier. I can't imagine getting into another since it would mean compromises I'm not willing to make.

skeletonjelly 10y ago
Probably an implied "good" modifier in there. Good relationships are a key part of being happy. Bad relationships...not so much
- pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
  Ah... HN. Such a magical land, where people call adjectives modifiers.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    What else would you call them? Adjectives modify nouns, adverbs modify verbs.
  - deepinthewoods 10y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_modifier https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_modifier
- ams6110 10y ago
  I would disagree that this is the case for everyone. I think a small number of people are happier without relationships.
  - Kiro 10y ago
    Yes, I'm definitely one of those. I don't understand why people try to convince me otherwise.
  - skeletonjelly 10y ago

jdminhbg 10y ago

> Talk About Your Work I strongly disagree with this one, although I'm not sure if my reasoning is broadly or only personally applicable. The last thing I want to do at the end of a long day of work is recap what I did. Even in the best-case scenario of a day full of victories, it's just exhausting to try to relive all of them with the added burden of explaining the decade-plus knowledge base you'd need to understand why Problem X was so hard to solve. I'm much happier with a base of other interests to talk about after work with a non-programmer instead.

khedoros 10y ago
I know that my wife appreciates hearing some about how my day went. I don't go into any really deep detail, but talking about how hard a problem was and how good it feel to solve it, or venting about something stupid that a coworker did are things I've come to enjoy. The technical details and why it was hard to solve aren't the parts that matter.
- jdminhbg 10y ago
  > I know that my wife appreciates hearing some about how my day went. I believe that. My girlfriend really pushes me occasionally about my day, and I think it's because she knows that talking about her day really helps her. I'm happy to listen for her, but I've just come to the conclusion that trying to recap things I've done makes me more stressed out, and the fifteen seconds of "no, I really don't want to talk about it" is worth it. And for what it's worth, having read back over that, I am not in a high-pressure job. I consult about thirty hours a week or so.
  - alvarosm 10y ago
    Well if you really must not talk about it because you're in a stressful situation... but it's not ideal.
  - douche 10y ago
    That's a classic male-female issue. Women, for whatever reason, are conditioned to need to talk about things to process them. Men are more likely to brood in silence instead. When I come home, I too would really rather not relive the last eight hours of fighting with broken hardware, broken tools, broken networks, and broken customers. Its time to put it out of mind, as best as can be done. I'd rather play with the dog, water the garden, and cook dinner.

rjbwork 10y ago

>Our brains automatically group similar memories together in order to save space. As developers, years can feel like weeks if we don’t actively pursue different experiences. This hit me hard. Feels like the years have just slipped on by since I graduated university. Not particularly sure how to stop it though...maybe a few more years and I can just take a few months off and travel or something?

dasboth 10y ago
Try going analogue, find a hobby that doesn't involve a computer (music, cooking, hiking etc.). I find if I do even a small amount of a few different activities in a day, it feels a lot more full. A day spent coding, then going home to cook dinner and read a book always feel better than a day spent coding, then going home to browse the internet or even work on a coding side project (if I get around to those, they're restricted to the weekend).
- amelius 10y ago
  > Try going analogue, find a hobby that doesn't involve a computer (music, cooking, hiking etc.) I would suggest to find a hobby that involves other people.
  - VLM 10y ago
    Or rephrased, you're doing it wrong if those three normally group activity examples don't involve other people and you're an extrovert looking for relationships.
  - douche 10y ago
    Unless, of course, you don't particularly like having to be around other people. Hiking by yourself is glorious.
  - TheCapn 10y ago
    I would too. But that doesn't mean you can't take up a hobby that is done alone but shared with a club. I got into car work and joined my local auto club. We do meets, drives, and grab beers every once in a while and share experiences or things we've done. EDIT: Not to mention the social point of "I fucked up, who knows what they're doing and wants to share a case and fix this mess" I've been hired by a few friends-of-friends to build automation and although the coding and electrical is done at my little workstation there's a local maker group that I like to share my works with. I always recommend picking up a hobby that has tangible products. Gaming and Reading are all mind exercises. Doing something with your hands helps work the body and when you've worked at something for long enough its much more visual for how you've honed your craft. Its a different type of reward than coding is. I don't know if I can describe the feeling it gives but it's different somehow, and it's a good feeling to look down upon a physical creation with pride.

Jean-Philipe 10y ago

> Call your grandma, friend, dad, girlfriend, anyone A bit offtopic, but the author seems to assume you are a straight coder guy. This was probably not his intention though. Why not replace "girlfriend" by something more neutral, like "your better half"? Being inclusive doesn't cost much, really.

spurgu 10y ago
Umm, it's more like a figure of speech. Anyone (I hope) can make the connection that he's referring to a romantic partner.
timwaagh 10y ago
Wow
SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
Why not replace "grandma" with "grandparent" as well? I know I won't be calling my grandma any time soon, even if I wanted to!
kraftman 10y ago
Your comment seems to assume only straight coder guys can have girlfriends. The author is just giving examples of people you can talk to, if it just said 'Call your girlfriend' that would be different.
- Jean-Philipe 10y ago
  No. I actually thought it, but I assumed the author would refer to straight guys as an audience. I might be wrong though. I didn't not make any assumptions about his actual audience, only about the author's perception.
  - alvarosm 10y ago
    making assumptions is racist. and sexist. and very much not PC. shame on you!
10y ago

owenversteeg 10y ago

Personally, I don't think that having healthy relationships as a developer is much different than having healthy relationships as anyone else. As with any other technical job, it can be hard to explain exactly what your job is, but a bit of humor and an ELI5-style explanation goes a long way. One thing specific to programmers is the ability to whip up a little program to help people. Someone spends an hour every day retyping lower-case data in uppercase? Take ten seconds and write them a program. Someone complains how they always forget to shut down their computer and waste electricity? Write them a widget to shut it down at 1am each night. When I take a bit of time to write programs for people I care about, people are usually very grateful and vastly overestimate the difficulty of whatever I just did. As always, relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1425/ https://xkcd.com/1425/

Rafert 10y ago
Obligatory follow-up link to that xkcd: http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-or-bird/ http://code.flickr.net/2014/10/20/introducing-flickr-park-or...
tranv94 10y ago
Agreed. It's known that one can program outside of work for a hobby (like many other jobs), but treating it like it's special probably creates the rift some may experience
karlmcguire 10y ago
Author here, I agree to an extent. As I said in the "Spend Time With Them" section, a lot of developers also program as their hobby. In fact, you pretty much have to program in your free time in order to keep up with all the new paradigms and frameworks. Jobs that have been around a lot longer, like construction or accounting, allow you to just leave your work when you go home. In that way I think developers face a unique challenge. We all know how prevalent burn out is in the industry, it's tough making sure relationships don't burn out as well. Thanks for the feedback!
- xkcd-sucks 10y ago

urbanxs 10y ago

Have dinners, travel and buy stuff - it is all you will ever get in life after all.

amelius 10y ago

This could be relevant: https://www.buzzworthy.com/research-shows-can-empathetic-analytical-time/ https://www.buzzworthy.com/research-shows-can-empathetic-ana...

gersh 10y ago

I don't think I really get how to have relationships. It seems a lot of developers fail bad at relationships. I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms. However, I think there is a greater cultural attack on technological professionals. I feel like we are devalued as some sort of machine that cranks out code. Many play into this as well. I don't think it is healthy.

dasboth 10y ago
I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms. Try seeking out people who also see beauty in maths and algorithms and you might have a better experience. Finding people who have similar values to you goes a long way in having good relationships (as long as you don't entirely limit yourself to like-minded people).
munificent 10y ago
> I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms. This statement is more accurate if you remove the comma. What you wrote makes a blanket claim about all people (which is highly unlikely to be true for even a majority). Without the comma, it's a useful heuristic for what kinds of people you should avoid so that you can have a more fulfilling circle of friends.
TheCowboy 10y ago
There is some evidence that developers are better at relationships. When it comes to marriage they have a relatively low divorce rate of around 10%. It can be partly confirmation bias that the worse relationship outcomes are most obvious to us. There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty in math and algorithms, because it's certainly there. But taken too far, it can become self-validating by judging other people as lacking value, and refusing to see beauty in other people with different interests. This might be part of what you view as an attack on technological professionals, where we're stereotyped as people with only an interest in computers/math and have no interest in actual people.

sakopov 10y ago

I read articles like this and always find it fascinating that none of them suggest simply stop doing what you do for work (or at least limit to a certain extent) and enjoy other things in life. You want to have a healthy life? Get away from the monitor and get outside. It's that simple no matter what you do.

daemonk 10y ago

This pretty much applies to any technical field. Good advice.

thanatropism 10y ago

LPT though: have friends at work but don't flirt with them. I had a really good friend at work for a while but it always had this flirty undercurrent. We both had SOs, but enjoyed the "office wife/husband" thing (my real wife actually knew about it and was not jealous). Anyway, the flirtationship thing makes you as vulnerable to criticism as an actual relationship, so the occasional sarcastic tirade or bad mood day really hurts. Long story short, we're not only no-longer-friends (this happen, I've worked at the same place for so long some friendships are cyclical); we can't talk to each other or work in the same open plan office. It's a small wonder no one's been fired. Ultimately the drama/good feeling ratio doesn't work out.

fluxquanta 10y ago
I would say your caution shouldn't only apply only to flirtatious relationships, but rather any interpersonal relationship at work that becomes too casual. I work in a small shop and was hired as the third developer, about 4 months after developer number two. Of course, Number 2 and I became friends pretty quickly and we would hang out outside of work on occasion. That is, until one day when some totally insignificant disagreement resulted in threats of physical violence against me. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy that, we never hung out again. I brought the comment up with management (the company owner) and as far as I can tell nothing came of it. Now, as our company and development staff has grown the owner has put this same guy in a managerial role that I have to answer to, and because of our history, it's becoming more difficult to stay productive in our interactions. In other words, friends in the workplace can be a good thing, but if it backfires, and especially if you're both candidates for advancement in the same department, the repercussions could have you polishing your resume.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  If you're a software developer, you shouldn't be staying in the same job more than a few years anyway. You'll get more pay by jumping around.
Grishnakh 10y ago
>LPT though: have friends at work but don't flirt with them. I'm a software engineer, and a hetero male. Why would I want to flirt with other men? I frequently wish I had gone into another career (probably medical) so I could try out this flirting with coworkers thing I keep hearing about.