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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

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
  >In fact, you pretty much have to program in your free time in order to keep up with all the new paradigms and frameworks Lol no. If I'm coding it's not free time, and if I'm coding to learn it's professional development, not recreation. "Coding is a lifestyle" is such a scam.
  - ceit 10y ago
    User name xkcd-sucks. Not a fan of coding for fun. Hackathons? Have you ever just wanted to write a web scraper in a new language to see how it is different from your usual? Never coded a small video game? Why are you a programmer then?
    - msvalkon 10y ago
      I'm a programmer because I enjoy it, my employer seems to value the results and I am relatively well compensated for my time. We should really make an effort to try to accommodate the people in the programming profession who do not want to spend their free time coding on projects. Programming is very, very enjoyable (to me), but I have a family with which I want to spend as much time as possible. Do I want to write a web-scraper in rust in my free time? Sure it sounds like a nice exercise. Would I rather spend that time with my kids? Yes.
      - NotAMouse 10y ago
        I don't think we should accommodate anybody with the handle 'xkcd-sucks', much less anybody so flippantly derisive of people who do code because they like to code.
        sanderjd 10y ago
        They weren't derisive of people who like to code, they were simply pushing back against the idea that you must do it as a lifestyle rather than just a profession. I love xkcd (and that username is clearly just trolling people who wrap up too much of their identity in the things they like), program for fun sometimes, and love to read computer science books for fun, but I completely agree with the sentiment that the common view that programming must be your lifestyle in order to thrive in the industry is unfortunate and problematic.

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
>In fact, you pretty much have to program in your free time in order to keep up with all the new paradigms and frameworks Lol no. If I'm coding it's not free time, and if I'm coding to learn it's professional development, not recreation. "Coding is a lifestyle" is such a scam.
- ceit 10y ago
  User name xkcd-sucks. Not a fan of coding for fun. Hackathons? Have you ever just wanted to write a web scraper in a new language to see how it is different from your usual? Never coded a small video game? Why are you a programmer then?
  - msvalkon 10y ago
    I'm a programmer because I enjoy it, my employer seems to value the results and I am relatively well compensated for my time. We should really make an effort to try to accommodate the people in the programming profession who do not want to spend their free time coding on projects. Programming is very, very enjoyable (to me), but I have a family with which I want to spend as much time as possible. Do I want to write a web-scraper in rust in my free time? Sure it sounds like a nice exercise. Would I rather spend that time with my kids? Yes.
    - NotAMouse 10y ago
      I don't think we should accommodate anybody with the handle 'xkcd-sucks', much less anybody so flippantly derisive of people who do code because they like to code.
      - sanderjd 10y ago
        They weren't derisive of people who like to code, they were simply pushing back against the idea that you must do it as a lifestyle rather than just a profession. I love xkcd (and that username is clearly just trolling people who wrap up too much of their identity in the things they like), program for fun sometimes, and love to read computer science books for fun, but I completely agree with the sentiment that the common view that programming must be your lifestyle in order to thrive in the industry is unfortunate and problematic.