5 ms·

Programming Is Not Fun

52 points by Garbage 16y ago

nlawalker 16y ago
Programming is fun, but shipping is not fun, and shipping is your job: http://www.removingalldoubt.com/PermaLink.aspx/a32977e2-cb7d-42ea-9d25-5e539423affd http://www.removingalldoubt.com/PermaLink.aspx/a32977e2-cb7d...
- seancron 16y ago
  Off topic, but that's one of the oddest permalinks I've seen. Is that a uuid on the end of the url? Any particular reason why it's that format?
Mithrandir 16y ago
...but hacking sure as hell is.
ZeroMinx 16y ago
"However, after some time doing it professionally, it loses its fun-ness." I'd claim this applies to any hobby turned into a profession.
devmonk 16y ago
Funny, but someone needs to add a "WhatProgrammersCanDoWhenProgrammingIsNotFun" page that talks about entrepreneurial activities, business, etc. that people bored of development can get into. I'm burnt out on programming, mostly because I find joy in business and doing good. I have very little joy in my current job, but I do it because it's my job. I would leave, but I have a family, I don't have income to replace it yet. I want my own successful business, and I'm here to hopefully on HN learn more about that. I think it would be interesting for someone to do a survey on programming burnout. I know some former programmers, so I know there would be more than people think out there.
- softbuilder 16y ago
  >someone needs to add a "WhatProgrammersCanDoWhenProgrammingIsNotFun" page It's a wiki. Go for it! :)
joshdev 16y ago
It's all in how you approach programming. If you view it as a puzzle and enjoy finding new ways to optimize some workflow it can be very enjoyable. Yes there are tedious moments, but those goes with just about any career out there and I'd argue that programming has a lot less tediousness compared to other jobs out there. The question to ask yourself, is if you are finding programming not fun, is this really the career path for you? Don't waste your time doing something you don't enjoy.
- j_baker 16y ago
  At one point, I'd have voted this up. But programming itself simply isn't what is not fun. I can easily take the tedium of programming in stride. The problem is that few employers will pay you to solve puzzles and optimize workflow. They pay you to put out a product that makes them money.
  - haploid 16y ago
    Optimizing workflow does make money.
buzzblog 16y ago
There's a reason it's called work.
- chc 16y ago
  PG wrote an interesting essay on this assumption (work = suck) a few years back: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html
- sophacles 16y ago
  There is a major difference between "there are some sucky parts that I do because they enable me to do this awesomeness, and those are called work" and "it's work, it sucks and is not fun". I have never held a job I feel the latter about (well for more than a month anyway), yet I do pretty darned well for myself.
- j_baker 16y ago
  ...because it derives from the old English word "worc" from before the year 900?
jhrobert 16y ago
c2 was such an amazing community!
- marssaxman 16y ago
  Too bad its discussion threads are so hard to read.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
cafard 16y ago
Well, compared to quite a few jobs I have held, programming is fun. Will you find more fun and fulfillment as a bus boy in a restaurant? As a delivery driver?
- wladimir 16y ago
  Indeed, they need to stop comparing it to other leasure activitied and instead to other work activities. And compared to most other types of work I find programming really interesting. Then again I find management and business and politics really boring...
wccrawford 16y ago
I got news for you: Yes it is. I love it. It was my hobby when I was young. So much so, that I thought working in the field would kill the fun of it, so I avoided that. Eventually, needing a career (and not just a job), I went into programming professionally. It didn't kill the fun. In fact, it's now more fun than ever. Programming is fun.
- devmonk 16y ago
  Have you done at least 10-15 years of it and are still a coder and not a manager?
  - marssaxman 16y ago
    18 years, here: still coding, still loving it, no interest in becoming a manager.
    - cagey 16y ago
      Ditto @ 21 years! It's not work, it's a hobby I happen to get paid (well) to spend time doing (well). The field is sufficiently vast, with "new things" (that I can teach myself at 0 cost, not including time) "coming out" at an ever increasing rate that there isn't the slightest chance I'll run out of things to learn. Plus almost all of my "old knowledge" is still relevant.
- michaels0620 16y ago
  Burn out is always a potential problem, but it's great when the programming you do at work makes you a better programmer which makes your hobby work better which in turn makes your work programming better, etc.
- Steve_Baker 16y ago
  I'd tend to agree, but for myself I think what I enjoyed most about programming was the problem solving aspect. As I've matured as a programmer the problems become easier and thus less interesting and there seems to be less and less undiscovered country. I wonder how to get that feeling of exploration back and I think I should blame myself for not having the time or energy to explore harder problems. I do think the author is misplacing his angst, it isn't programming itself, it's the business of programming that sucks. How to fix it though?
Sakes 16y ago
I've worked for a couple companies over my 7 year programming career. I have experienced the emotions expressed in this article. The problem isn't that programming is not fun, it's that programming for the wrong company isn't fun. The source of my passion for programming is learning, and if a company doesn't support your thirst for knowledge and creativity, then it's time to find a new company!
samtp 16y ago
"We must imagine Sisyphus happy" - Albert Camus
runT1ME 16y ago
What an interesting claim! That's like saying 'plucking strings on a guitar is not fun'. Well, no, if you're just doing it to see what it's like, or hell, I imagine even playing a really crappy annoying song is rather miserable. However, if you're composing and playing something beautiful, well, it's probably one of the most enjoyable things you can do.
- derefr 16y ago
  But in the case of composing/playing, you're having fun despite plucking strings, not because of it. If we could play the guitar without having to actually touch one, I imagine we would. In the same way, if we could make computers do amazing things without programming, surely, we would. Of course, we can't—though being a manager of programmers comes close :)
- _delirium 16y ago
  I could easily see playing an instrument turning not-fun if you do it as a full-time job, especially if you're doing it as an employee with minimal creative control, in a fairly big organization, which is the place a lot of programmers find themselves. The musician version might be: playing guitar in a Las Vegas casino's house band. Pays the bills, but it's not many musicians' dream, and it surely gets un-fun after a few weeks, let alone years.
dandelany 16y ago
While I disagree with the thesis, this part strikes me as almost universally true, in my experience: Everything Seems to Suck. Every new thing that is supposed to solve the problems of the old things has its own problems. By the time all the bugs in the new thing is fixed, it's an old thing.
Orca 16y ago
Programming isn't as fun as building and creating.
jimmyjazz14 16y ago
I feel like most of the points made in the article could be modified to fit pretty much any career path. Work isn't always fun, that's why they call it work.
bugsy 16y ago
I derive great personal satisfaction from creating new useful things that are of high quality. Most of the process of doing so is a pain in the butt though, and is neither fun nor easy. Sure, it can be fun to hack together some little script that no one but myself will ever use and which only contains the exact features I need. Making something of commercial quality with intuitive usability amazingly not ruined by a deep feature set is a completely different issue though. A lot of people who say programming is always fun seem to primarily release unusable open source stuff that is a nightmare to fix to get it working at all on any computer other than the developer's own machine, or they only work on trivial problems in a limited domain.
edw519 16y ago
Sorry, but I couldn't resist changing "Programming" to "Sex" to see what would happen... Sex Is Not Fun Then you're doing it wrong. Most Sex Is Boring Find a new partner. It's the Same Thrust, Over and Over Again That's how it's supposed to work. Lack of a Sex-Centric Career Path Then make it your hobby. Everyone Seems to Suck Are you bragging or complaining? Women Are Clueless, and They Make Unreasonable Demands Take a Viagra. Isolation Your hand is your friend. Things Change Too Fast You took too many Viagra. No Free Time Do 2 things at once. Lack of Recognition "Oh, you're so good! You're so good!" Happy? Your wife is a WellspringOfNegativity Thrust deeper. You're Surrounded by a Bunch of Geeks Get better curtains. You Never Feel Like You Accomplish Anything Turn her over. Fun is not an attribute of sex Get some toys. Sex Is Not Fun without Philosophy Read the Kama Sutra. Work in Sex Only If You're Hardcore No argument here.
- imasr 16y ago
  I'd give you 100 votes if I could! (gave you one, though)
andywood 16y ago
Programming is not fun when you're constrained by people, methodologies, or technologies that you don't agree with on the inside. It's great fun when you do it at home, or on a small team of like-minded people, because you get to pick what you work on and how. The more other people are pushing you to make choices that you wouldn't make yourself, the less fun it is, because that's basically the essence of stress.
jrockway 16y ago
This article is mistitled, it should be "Code monkeying is not fun". Programming is as fun as you make it, but what the article describes is not programming. What makes programming fun is reuse; you only ever have to do something once. If all you do is move data around, display it, or glue modules together, you are not implementing your solutions abstractly enough.
sidewinder 16y ago
I've been programming in the aerospace/defense industry for 5 years now. For me, programming has stayed fun because I get to work on interesting problems and see the fruits of my labor when a new product gets built and certified. My biggest piece of advice for people is keep learning and find something new when you get stuck in a rut, never settle! I definitely agree with the authors "Lack of a Programming-Centric Career Path" points. I recently ignored my gut and took on a management/leadership role. It's good experience and the "right career move" but it's not what I wanted at this time. Anyone wanting a programming career should read "Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman".
robryan 16y ago
Sometimes many of the individual tasks in a project could be considered not fun but the goal and the journey as a whole is. The same concept I guess with why people in WoW would spend hours doing things they wouldn't consider fun at all in order to achieve a goal which will be a fun payoff.

52 points by Garbage 16y ago

Programming is fun, but shipping is not fun, and shipping is your job: http://www.removingalldoubt.com/PermaLink.aspx/a32977e2-cb7d-42ea-9d25-5e539423affd http://www.removingalldoubt.com/PermaLink.aspx/a32977e2-cb7d...

seancron 16y ago
Off topic, but that's one of the oddest permalinks I've seen. Is that a uuid on the end of the url? Any particular reason why it's that format?

Mithrandir 16y ago

...but hacking sure as hell is.

ZeroMinx 16y ago

"However, after some time doing it professionally, it loses its fun-ness." I'd claim this applies to any hobby turned into a profession.

devmonk 16y ago

Funny, but someone needs to add a "WhatProgrammersCanDoWhenProgrammingIsNotFun" page that talks about entrepreneurial activities, business, etc. that people bored of development can get into. I'm burnt out on programming, mostly because I find joy in business and doing good. I have very little joy in my current job, but I do it because it's my job. I would leave, but I have a family, I don't have income to replace it yet. I want my own successful business, and I'm here to hopefully on HN learn more about that. I think it would be interesting for someone to do a survey on programming burnout. I know some former programmers, so I know there would be more than people think out there.

softbuilder 16y ago
>someone needs to add a "WhatProgrammersCanDoWhenProgrammingIsNotFun" page It's a wiki. Go for it! :)

joshdev 16y ago

It's all in how you approach programming. If you view it as a puzzle and enjoy finding new ways to optimize some workflow it can be very enjoyable. Yes there are tedious moments, but those goes with just about any career out there and I'd argue that programming has a lot less tediousness compared to other jobs out there. The question to ask yourself, is if you are finding programming not fun, is this really the career path for you? Don't waste your time doing something you don't enjoy.

j_baker 16y ago
At one point, I'd have voted this up. But programming itself simply isn't what is not fun. I can easily take the tedium of programming in stride. The problem is that few employers will pay you to solve puzzles and optimize workflow. They pay you to put out a product that makes them money.
- haploid 16y ago
  Optimizing workflow does make money.

buzzblog 16y ago

There's a reason it's called work.

chc 16y ago
PG wrote an interesting essay on this assumption (work = suck) a few years back: http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html
sophacles 16y ago
There is a major difference between "there are some sucky parts that I do because they enable me to do this awesomeness, and those are called work" and "it's work, it sucks and is not fun". I have never held a job I feel the latter about (well for more than a month anyway), yet I do pretty darned well for myself.
j_baker 16y ago
...because it derives from the old English word "worc" from before the year 900?

jhrobert 16y ago

c2 was such an amazing community!

marssaxman 16y ago
Too bad its discussion threads are so hard to read.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

cafard 16y ago

Well, compared to quite a few jobs I have held, programming is fun. Will you find more fun and fulfillment as a bus boy in a restaurant? As a delivery driver?

wladimir 16y ago
Indeed, they need to stop comparing it to other leasure activitied and instead to other work activities. And compared to most other types of work I find programming really interesting. Then again I find management and business and politics really boring...

wccrawford 16y ago

I got news for you: Yes it is. I love it. It was my hobby when I was young. So much so, that I thought working in the field would kill the fun of it, so I avoided that. Eventually, needing a career (and not just a job), I went into programming professionally. It didn't kill the fun. In fact, it's now more fun than ever. Programming is fun.

devmonk 16y ago
Have you done at least 10-15 years of it and are still a coder and not a manager?
- marssaxman 16y ago
  18 years, here: still coding, still loving it, no interest in becoming a manager.
  - cagey 16y ago
    Ditto @ 21 years! It's not work, it's a hobby I happen to get paid (well) to spend time doing (well). The field is sufficiently vast, with "new things" (that I can teach myself at 0 cost, not including time) "coming out" at an ever increasing rate that there isn't the slightest chance I'll run out of things to learn. Plus almost all of my "old knowledge" is still relevant.
michaels0620 16y ago
Burn out is always a potential problem, but it's great when the programming you do at work makes you a better programmer which makes your hobby work better which in turn makes your work programming better, etc.
Steve_Baker 16y ago
I'd tend to agree, but for myself I think what I enjoyed most about programming was the problem solving aspect. As I've matured as a programmer the problems become easier and thus less interesting and there seems to be less and less undiscovered country. I wonder how to get that feeling of exploration back and I think I should blame myself for not having the time or energy to explore harder problems. I do think the author is misplacing his angst, it isn't programming itself, it's the business of programming that sucks. How to fix it though?

Sakes 16y ago

I've worked for a couple companies over my 7 year programming career. I have experienced the emotions expressed in this article. The problem isn't that programming is not fun, it's that programming for the wrong company isn't fun. The source of my passion for programming is learning, and if a company doesn't support your thirst for knowledge and creativity, then it's time to find a new company!

samtp 16y ago

"We must imagine Sisyphus happy" - Albert Camus

runT1ME 16y ago

What an interesting claim! That's like saying 'plucking strings on a guitar is not fun'. Well, no, if you're just doing it to see what it's like, or hell, I imagine even playing a really crappy annoying song is rather miserable. However, if you're composing and playing something beautiful, well, it's probably one of the most enjoyable things you can do.

derefr 16y ago
But in the case of composing/playing, you're having fun despite plucking strings, not because of it. If we could play the guitar without having to actually touch one, I imagine we would. In the same way, if we could make computers do amazing things without programming, surely, we would. Of course, we can't—though being a manager of programmers comes close :)
_delirium 16y ago
I could easily see playing an instrument turning not-fun if you do it as a full-time job, especially if you're doing it as an employee with minimal creative control, in a fairly big organization, which is the place a lot of programmers find themselves. The musician version might be: playing guitar in a Las Vegas casino's house band. Pays the bills, but it's not many musicians' dream, and it surely gets un-fun after a few weeks, let alone years.

dandelany 16y ago

While I disagree with the thesis, this part strikes me as almost universally true, in my experience: Everything Seems to Suck. Every new thing that is supposed to solve the problems of the old things has its own problems. By the time all the bugs in the new thing is fixed, it's an old thing.

Orca 16y ago

Programming isn't as fun as building and creating.

jimmyjazz14 16y ago

I feel like most of the points made in the article could be modified to fit pretty much any career path. Work isn't always fun, that's why they call it work.

bugsy 16y ago

I derive great personal satisfaction from creating new useful things that are of high quality. Most of the process of doing so is a pain in the butt though, and is neither fun nor easy. Sure, it can be fun to hack together some little script that no one but myself will ever use and which only contains the exact features I need. Making something of commercial quality with intuitive usability amazingly not ruined by a deep feature set is a completely different issue though. A lot of people who say programming is always fun seem to primarily release unusable open source stuff that is a nightmare to fix to get it working at all on any computer other than the developer's own machine, or they only work on trivial problems in a limited domain.

edw519 16y ago

Sorry, but I couldn't resist changing "Programming" to "Sex" to see what would happen... Sex Is Not Fun Then you're doing it wrong. Most Sex Is Boring Find a new partner. It's the Same Thrust, Over and Over Again That's how it's supposed to work. Lack of a Sex-Centric Career Path Then make it your hobby. Everyone Seems to Suck Are you bragging or complaining? Women Are Clueless, and They Make Unreasonable Demands Take a Viagra. Isolation Your hand is your friend. Things Change Too Fast You took too many Viagra. No Free Time Do 2 things at once. Lack of Recognition "Oh, you're so good! You're so good!" Happy? Your wife is a WellspringOfNegativity Thrust deeper. You're Surrounded by a Bunch of Geeks Get better curtains. You Never Feel Like You Accomplish Anything Turn her over. Fun is not an attribute of sex Get some toys. Sex Is Not Fun without Philosophy Read the Kama Sutra. Work in Sex Only If You're Hardcore No argument here.

imasr 16y ago
I'd give you 100 votes if I could! (gave you one, though)

andywood 16y ago

Programming is not fun when you're constrained by people, methodologies, or technologies that you don't agree with on the inside. It's great fun when you do it at home, or on a small team of like-minded people, because you get to pick what you work on and how. The more other people are pushing you to make choices that you wouldn't make yourself, the less fun it is, because that's basically the essence of stress.

jrockway 16y ago

This article is mistitled, it should be "Code monkeying is not fun". Programming is as fun as you make it, but what the article describes is not programming. What makes programming fun is reuse; you only ever have to do something once. If all you do is move data around, display it, or glue modules together, you are not implementing your solutions abstractly enough.

sidewinder 16y ago

I've been programming in the aerospace/defense industry for 5 years now. For me, programming has stayed fun because I get to work on interesting problems and see the fruits of my labor when a new product gets built and certified. My biggest piece of advice for people is keep learning and find something new when you get stuck in a rut, never settle! I definitely agree with the authors "Lack of a Programming-Centric Career Path" points. I recently ignored my gut and took on a management/leadership role. It's good experience and the "right career move" but it's not what I wanted at this time. Anyone wanting a programming career should read "Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman".

robryan 16y ago

Sometimes many of the individual tasks in a project could be considered not fun but the goal and the journey as a whole is. The same concept I guess with why people in WoW would spend hours doing things they wouldn't consider fun at all in order to achieve a goal which will be a fun payoff.