3 ms·

My GF laughs at me and says that I'm a terrible techie, outside of computers and programming, I'm just not that interested in technology anymore, A lot of the f

My GF laughs at me and says that I'm a terrible techie, outside of computers and programming, I'm just not that interested in technology anymore, A lot of the fluff around IoT seems just that fluff, I'm excited by the possibilities in terms of things like city management, I couldn't care less if I can turn my lights on when I walk into my house or if my toaster is connected to the internet. I don't buy gadgets, I own tablets to watch the odd movie and for device testing otherwise I would only have one, my phone is a 4 year old Nexus 4 which I broke the back on and covered in black electrical tape (I could replace it but I don't care enough to do so), I use a 17" Vostro for working the odd time I can't be at my office or at home and it's dented and has stickers stuck all over the scratches, I'm not even sure I remember what the stickers where for. I'm just not excited by new hardware like I used to be, I only care when it'll have a demonstrable impact on my enjoyment of programming where once I'd have lusted after the latest and greatest I couldn't even name the best model of i7 or whatever at the moment, I only care about that stuff when I'm building a new desktop. What does excite me is how technology is having a meaningful impact on peoples quality of life. I think in a way thats just part of getting older (I'm 36). That and every time I interact with technology that isn't one of my linux machines I come away feeling like I should hunt down whoever wrote the software with a bat and some bad intentions, one of the downsides to been a programmer is that the deficiencies of everything are so much more obvious. Prime example, I bought a LiFX 1000 bulb (WiFi/IoT bulb) to put into a ships lamp as a christmas present for the GF, it took me 45 minutes to set the thing up, followed all the instructions to the letter, de nada then I thought "I wonder if changing the wireless channel might work" and lo and behold changing from Channel 13 to channel 9 made it work. Nowhere was that documented in the instructions (which I read) and had I not been a techie I'd have never thought to try it, my point been where once I'd have thought "This is cool" now I just resent the 45 minutes I won't get back.

bayonetz 10y ago
I just lost 3 hours of my life debugging JavaScript utc vs local time issues in a top rated React datepicker component. Where I used to relish the learning from such experiences, now I feel vaguely resentful and just want that time back for more leisurely pursuits. What I've realized is there is an exponential drop off on how much time "learning experiences" like these will save me in the future. For example, for this category of debugging, it might taken me several days early on, then 1 day, then 4 hours, then 3.5, now 3, maybe 2.8 next time, etc. I think unconsciously when I was starting out I thought all this hard work I was putting in would pay off such that I'd eventually get to a level where I could basically blink and new 1000+ line projects would just appear effortlessly, bug free, and ready to go. The reality is much farther from the truth. While my investment has paid off immensely, there is still a ton of uninteresting ditch digging that still has to get done in the service of making stuff. For me all the way up to the most brilliant engineers out there, there are still plenty of 3 hour slogs left where we will never get that time back and the result won't feel like it was worth it.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  Everything you said and the fact that the 'surface' to learn anything well is now huge so we have lots of abstractions all of which leak and require you know a fair bit about all the layers underneath if you want to consider yourself 'good' at what you do.

bayonetz 10y ago

I just lost 3 hours of my life debugging JavaScript utc vs local time issues in a top rated React datepicker component. Where I used to relish the learning from such experiences, now I feel vaguely resentful and just want that time back for more leisurely pursuits. What I've realized is there is an exponential drop off on how much time "learning experiences" like these will save me in the future. For example, for this category of debugging, it might taken me several days early on, then 1 day, then 4 hours, then 3.5, now 3, maybe 2.8 next time, etc. I think unconsciously when I was starting out I thought all this hard work I was putting in would pay off such that I'd eventually get to a level where I could basically blink and new 1000+ line projects would just appear effortlessly, bug free, and ready to go. The reality is much farther from the truth. While my investment has paid off immensely, there is still a ton of uninteresting ditch digging that still has to get done in the service of making stuff. For me all the way up to the most brilliant engineers out there, there are still plenty of 3 hour slogs left where we will never get that time back and the result won't feel like it was worth it.

noir_lord 10y ago
Everything you said and the fact that the 'surface' to learn anything well is now huge so we have lots of abstractions all of which leak and require you know a fair bit about all the layers underneath if you want to consider yourself 'good' at what you do.