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I've been a musician for far longer than I've been a programmer. During the first 3-5 years of playing, I'd play for many, many hours. At my peak, I'd practice

I've been a musician for far longer than I've been a programmer. During the first 3-5 years of playing, I'd play for many, many hours. At my peak, I'd practice for up to 8-10 hours a day. Before school, during school, after school. I had my trusty one guitar, which worked for everything I needed. Then I started earning money, and began purchasing stuff. This avalanches into a full-blown addiction of constantly chasing / trying out new stuff. My playing suffered, my practice routines died, my creativity went to shit. Even though I was still quite skillful, I found myself playing/noodling the same stuff, caring about pretty much everything BUT the actual playing/music. I'm now back to owning a couple of guitars, and focusing on what's important. Writing music, getting ahead, and improving. And for some reason, that mirrors my experience with programming, too. I'm not sure, maybe some people are just prone to that kind of stuff? Getting caught up with the superficial things.

hnarn 7y ago
It could be more general, that humans just get caught up in what feels good.
carlosdagos 7y ago
Well I have an anecdote that works as a parallel: During my first few years of surfing, I would try (and buy) lots of different surfboards. Also happened to me that as I earned money, I spent more and more on surfboards. I moved countries a few years ago and sold all my boards back at home, and just got two boards here (one for small waves, one for larger waves). That turned out to be so much better for me. I don't spend so much time looking at every detail of the surfboard, instead I just go surf. I try new things on the surfboards I have, and it tends to be about techniques and less so about the boards themselves. Occasionally I will try my mate's surfboards and I think that they're nice, but not enough to justify spending more money on another board. I don't believe it's 100% about proneness to get caught up in that kind of stuff. I guess for me it was more just trying to get the most out of the experience. Ironically enough I wasn't surfing as much before moving to a different country, whereas where I currently live I surf 2-3 times a week. Maybe there's some parallels there? As in the more you actually practice X, the more you're likely to find the subset of tools that actually work for you? That said, I do still believe (and agree with the link) in a few times a year testing out new languages, frameworks, etc, so see what the fuss is about, and in the process learn new things that I might bring back to my current project or toolset.
- manthedudeguy 7y ago
  I will give you private surf lessons if you get me a good paying tech job near good surf

hnarn 7y ago

It could be more general, that humans just get caught up in what feels good.

carlosdagos 7y ago

Well I have an anecdote that works as a parallel: During my first few years of surfing, I would try (and buy) lots of different surfboards. Also happened to me that as I earned money, I spent more and more on surfboards. I moved countries a few years ago and sold all my boards back at home, and just got two boards here (one for small waves, one for larger waves). That turned out to be so much better for me. I don't spend so much time looking at every detail of the surfboard, instead I just go surf. I try new things on the surfboards I have, and it tends to be about techniques and less so about the boards themselves. Occasionally I will try my mate's surfboards and I think that they're nice, but not enough to justify spending more money on another board. I don't believe it's 100% about proneness to get caught up in that kind of stuff. I guess for me it was more just trying to get the most out of the experience. Ironically enough I wasn't surfing as much before moving to a different country, whereas where I currently live I surf 2-3 times a week. Maybe there's some parallels there? As in the more you actually practice X, the more you're likely to find the subset of tools that actually work for you? That said, I do still believe (and agree with the link) in a few times a year testing out new languages, frameworks, etc, so see what the fuss is about, and in the process learn new things that I might bring back to my current project or toolset.

manthedudeguy 7y ago
I will give you private surf lessons if you get me a good paying tech job near good surf