7 ms·

Being totally honest here. I don't find any work that I totally can't stop thinking about. There is always something that I need to get done that I don't relish

Being totally honest here. I don't find any work that I totally can't stop thinking about. There is always something that I need to get done that I don't relish, that I don't enjoy. Here's how it goes - there's an idea that you think is really nice, you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. Some do, but most of them are like meh. There comes the first punch and you either think they are all dumb or ascribe some positivity to what others are saying and start talking to more people or start working on a prototype. Then you realize you have to build a front end. Welcome to front end hell. You have no fucking clue how CSS has evolved over the last 6 months. The npm package you thought was useful is now outdated or not maintained. So by now you are more or less exhausted. What started as a fabulous idea in the head has now boiled down to 'shit let me get done with this CSS crap and move on'. At this time, I don't even want to think about CSS, let alone HTML. Rinse and repeat this until you find success. At least, this has been my experience.

qmmmur 7y ago
I realise this is anecdotal but have you considered there is a whole territory of work that never requires html npm css front end madness?
- spiderfarmer 7y ago
  Yes, it’s called vanilla css.
- deepGem 7y ago
  Yep, but I have only worked on market/users based ideas which invariably need a front end prototype to start with, hence the bias.
  - vinc 7y ago
    I'd suggest sticking to Bootstrap for a prototype with maybe changing the colors for a bit of customization and that's it. Of course that may not be possible depending on your project but when it's possible it saves a lot of work to reach MVP level without burning out.
technothrasher 7y ago
It sounds like you're too goal oriented. Leisure activities can be simply about enjoying the activity and don't have to lead to anything. If you like to work on an idea, work on it. When you're annoyed by having to put a front end on it, just don't. You've played with your ideas, you've hopefully learned something and enjoyed passing the time. Now you are free to drop it like a hot potato and move on. I spend my work time on embedded engineering. I like it well enough, but it's stressful because there are goals to be met and drudge work to be done. But I spend my free time working on classic sports cars. I fix what I want on the car and if I'm tired of it, I just get rid of it and move on to something else. No goal, no stress, just enjoyment.
- js4 7y ago
  It’s a shame people can’t think of software projects like this —or businesses
- crearterandom23 7y ago
  You can always out source it and work the interesting part of the idea in the time available.
- jlelonm 7y ago
  Not who you replied to, but you described me to a T. Problem is - I have no idea what to do about it. It's so hard to do anything fun in my free time because the moment I think about doing / starting something, goal oriented t thoughts follow, which means stress follows. I wish I could just go into "kick the can" mode whenever I wanted and turn off the part of my brain that wants to see results, progress, and checkmarks.
  - CptFribble 7y ago
    It takes practice like anything else, but one trick I found is to pick something that you definitely won't ever want to make money or a career from. Maybe you have absolutely no desire to be a painter or artist. Pick up a pencil and just doodle for 30 minutes. Get some cheap paint and a small canvas on your way home from work and just spend an hour going for it. Maybe you've always wanted to try fencing. Find a place and take a couple classes just to see what it's like. I'm also like that, anything I start as a side project almost immediately becomes "if I don't change the world with this, why am I wasting my time?" So I had to start doing things that I know will never amount to anything, and specifically tell myself "This will never matter." When you can accept that you're spending a little time on something that's just for its own sake, then you've done it - you're experiencing an honest-to-goodness leisure activity.
maroonblazer 7y ago
>you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. I think this was your first mistake. I believe the author's point is that whatever that thing is, it's important to you and potentially you alone. If it so happens to be interesting to others that's icing on the cake. And, there's at least some chance that that thing you find to be so important others, somewhere, will find it valuable too, more or less. But maybe not, and that's OK.
- kingludite 7y ago
  I use a more generic version of this scheme: 1) You keep that what makes your life worth while far away from potential critics. 2) Expect those deep into something not to want to share anything about their passion until you fully assure them of your respect and sincere interest. IOW they specifically don't want your [negative] opinion about their stamp collection or their model trains.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dceddia 7y ago
I realize that CSS itself isn’t really the point here, that it’s just one annoying thing in the pile of annoying things. But I wanted to mention... As a front end dev and someone who teaches front end stuff (React mainly), CSS really doesn’t change quickly, and when it does change, those changes are additive. CSS is very very good about backward compatibility. To give a specific example, CSS Grid is a newer feature than Flexbox, but both are useful for layout, and in this case newer isn’t better, just different. (I know, newer == better is nearly a universal constant in the front end world, but CSS doesn’t suffer from that nearly as much as JS does). I just wanted to mention this in case part of the problem is that you don’t know the “new” way to do something in CSS, and you don’t want to learn it, but you do know a way to do what you want... just do it the way you know, and it’ll very likely be fine. You might enjoy a utility CSS framework like Tailwind [0] that relieves you from some decisions and gives you some nice shorthand without locking you in to a specific look or a specific JS framework. (I know, another thing to learn... but it’s worth a quick look, might save you time in the long run) 0: https://tailwindcss.com/ https://tailwindcss.com/
- FPGAhacker 7y ago
  My problem is I don’t know a way. So I go searching for resources to learn from. Except there are dozens of ways to do a given thing. And all are really just partial, incomplete solutions, in different ways. Some are outdated, but how can I tell when I’m not a domain expert. And I don’t want to be an expert on every single domain I have to touch to build whatever thing I am working on. It’s a frustrating world.
  - sjy 7y ago
    That’s a really interesting point. I learned CSS back in the early 2000s and it was easy. Not only was there less to learn, the resources out there were high quality. It was clear that CSS was the new “best practice” and the alternatives (tables-based layout and font tags) were legacy. Whenever I try to brush up on newer CSS features, the signal-to-noise ratio seems much lower than it used to be. Part of that is probably that I’m experienced enough to recognise bad advice now, but part of it is also the industrialisation of the web industry and huge influx of new developers.
PascLeRasc 7y ago
Have you tried work other than software development? Like something adjacent in a scientific field, or working on creating art? I don't mean working on scientific computing software or AI-generated music, I mean actually doing biology experiments or playing the piano. It seems like software development just frustrates you, and I can understand why. But you might find a lot of joy doing something entirely different.
mntmoss 7y ago
Here is what I have discovered after grinding at that process many times: You have to find a mechanism of internal feedback and drive the project through that. What I mean there is, simply, when you get the idea and your first instinct is to seek confirmation from others, you've already erred by basing the entire thing on the whims of others. Even if you get them to become stakeholders with a substantial interest, they are still most likely operating on their whims. They go to the meeting because they are obliged to have a meeting, and the extent that they care is simply the extent that you have entangled them in it. You cannot rely on others in this regard; they can be great friends in most aspects of life and still be utterly perplexed by your ideas, even if they start seeing them working in practice. We all fly to our comfort zones. But this means that being a good student, a hard worker or a loyal friend is not sufficient to cross the threshold into realizing something original. What you can rely on to make that crossing are tools of logic and reason: first do some philosophy and determine your thesis. Find principles, themes and references to give it structure to hang the work off of. Make sure it coheres in an explicable way, with logical premises: compare everything pair-wise, make diagrams, whatever you have to do. There are a lot of possible "systems" but having one is the important thing. You do not want to be in a position of blind faith in the idea alone, and a strong high-level concept has the power of making it easier to rationalize, explain, and argue for a certain way of doing, thus eliminating your doubts. Once you have some starting point, generate requirements with binary true/false factors: it must have this, it cannot have that. Sketching out requirements can tell you something about the principles you have in mind so it helps to cycle between the two a bit. But you don't build a solid project just on requirements because those are so often subject to whims: "why do it that way?" "meh, felt like it." You instead challenge each requirement against the broader idea to ensure that it works at scale. From the aggregate of binary factors, key metrics to focus on also appear. And as you do requirement generation, the motivation to do the work appears naturally because you have to do it to answer the question! And of course, doing this, it becomes a marathon, not a sprint, because it quickly takes you out of the space where you just grab off-the-shelf solutions and slap it together. You start going well out of the comfort zone to answer your question. Now you have experiments to run and research to follow up on. The principles and themes of the project never change once established, they only become more refined and nuanced as you evaluate what the best means of achieving them are. And I think that is, in essence, how you do it. You can achieve something resembling a successful creative work by accident, but if you stick to a principled approach your chances improve sharply.
hyperpallium 7y ago
Problems with talking to people: (1) can't communicate it properly (2) too few people to hit one who loves it What worked for me: make an absolutely minimal version of the idea (2 hours), and a webpage that describes its promise (9 hours). 500 people looked at it, one thought it was cool - that was enough for me.

qmmmur 7y ago

I realise this is anecdotal but have you considered there is a whole territory of work that never requires html npm css front end madness?

spiderfarmer 7y ago
Yes, it’s called vanilla css.
deepGem 7y ago
Yep, but I have only worked on market/users based ideas which invariably need a front end prototype to start with, hence the bias.
- vinc 7y ago
  I'd suggest sticking to Bootstrap for a prototype with maybe changing the colors for a bit of customization and that's it. Of course that may not be possible depending on your project but when it's possible it saves a lot of work to reach MVP level without burning out.

technothrasher 7y ago

It sounds like you're too goal oriented. Leisure activities can be simply about enjoying the activity and don't have to lead to anything. If you like to work on an idea, work on it. When you're annoyed by having to put a front end on it, just don't. You've played with your ideas, you've hopefully learned something and enjoyed passing the time. Now you are free to drop it like a hot potato and move on. I spend my work time on embedded engineering. I like it well enough, but it's stressful because there are goals to be met and drudge work to be done. But I spend my free time working on classic sports cars. I fix what I want on the car and if I'm tired of it, I just get rid of it and move on to something else. No goal, no stress, just enjoyment.

js4 7y ago
It’s a shame people can’t think of software projects like this —or businesses
crearterandom23 7y ago
You can always out source it and work the interesting part of the idea in the time available.
jlelonm 7y ago
Not who you replied to, but you described me to a T. Problem is - I have no idea what to do about it. It's so hard to do anything fun in my free time because the moment I think about doing / starting something, goal oriented t thoughts follow, which means stress follows. I wish I could just go into "kick the can" mode whenever I wanted and turn off the part of my brain that wants to see results, progress, and checkmarks.
- CptFribble 7y ago
  It takes practice like anything else, but one trick I found is to pick something that you definitely won't ever want to make money or a career from. Maybe you have absolutely no desire to be a painter or artist. Pick up a pencil and just doodle for 30 minutes. Get some cheap paint and a small canvas on your way home from work and just spend an hour going for it. Maybe you've always wanted to try fencing. Find a place and take a couple classes just to see what it's like. I'm also like that, anything I start as a side project almost immediately becomes "if I don't change the world with this, why am I wasting my time?" So I had to start doing things that I know will never amount to anything, and specifically tell myself "This will never matter." When you can accept that you're spending a little time on something that's just for its own sake, then you've done it - you're experiencing an honest-to-goodness leisure activity.

maroonblazer 7y ago

>you start talking to people then you are hit with reality - no one gives a shit about your idea. I think this was your first mistake. I believe the author's point is that whatever that thing is, it's important to you and potentially you alone. If it so happens to be interesting to others that's icing on the cake. And, there's at least some chance that that thing you find to be so important others, somewhere, will find it valuable too, more or less. But maybe not, and that's OK.

kingludite 7y ago
I use a more generic version of this scheme: 1) You keep that what makes your life worth while far away from potential critics. 2) Expect those deep into something not to want to share anything about their passion until you fully assure them of your respect and sincere interest. IOW they specifically don't want your [negative] opinion about their stamp collection or their model trains.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dceddia 7y ago

I realize that CSS itself isn’t really the point here, that it’s just one annoying thing in the pile of annoying things. But I wanted to mention... As a front end dev and someone who teaches front end stuff (React mainly), CSS really doesn’t change quickly, and when it does change, those changes are additive. CSS is very very good about backward compatibility. To give a specific example, CSS Grid is a newer feature than Flexbox, but both are useful for layout, and in this case newer isn’t better, just different. (I know, newer == better is nearly a universal constant in the front end world, but CSS doesn’t suffer from that nearly as much as JS does). I just wanted to mention this in case part of the problem is that you don’t know the “new” way to do something in CSS, and you don’t want to learn it, but you do know a way to do what you want... just do it the way you know, and it’ll very likely be fine. You might enjoy a utility CSS framework like Tailwind [0] that relieves you from some decisions and gives you some nice shorthand without locking you in to a specific look or a specific JS framework. (I know, another thing to learn... but it’s worth a quick look, might save you time in the long run) 0: https://tailwindcss.com/ https://tailwindcss.com/

FPGAhacker 7y ago
My problem is I don’t know a way. So I go searching for resources to learn from. Except there are dozens of ways to do a given thing. And all are really just partial, incomplete solutions, in different ways. Some are outdated, but how can I tell when I’m not a domain expert. And I don’t want to be an expert on every single domain I have to touch to build whatever thing I am working on. It’s a frustrating world.
- sjy 7y ago
  That’s a really interesting point. I learned CSS back in the early 2000s and it was easy. Not only was there less to learn, the resources out there were high quality. It was clear that CSS was the new “best practice” and the alternatives (tables-based layout and font tags) were legacy. Whenever I try to brush up on newer CSS features, the signal-to-noise ratio seems much lower than it used to be. Part of that is probably that I’m experienced enough to recognise bad advice now, but part of it is also the industrialisation of the web industry and huge influx of new developers.

PascLeRasc 7y ago

Have you tried work other than software development? Like something adjacent in a scientific field, or working on creating art? I don't mean working on scientific computing software or AI-generated music, I mean actually doing biology experiments or playing the piano. It seems like software development just frustrates you, and I can understand why. But you might find a lot of joy doing something entirely different.

mntmoss 7y ago

Here is what I have discovered after grinding at that process many times: You have to find a mechanism of internal feedback and drive the project through that. What I mean there is, simply, when you get the idea and your first instinct is to seek confirmation from others, you've already erred by basing the entire thing on the whims of others. Even if you get them to become stakeholders with a substantial interest, they are still most likely operating on their whims. They go to the meeting because they are obliged to have a meeting, and the extent that they care is simply the extent that you have entangled them in it. You cannot rely on others in this regard; they can be great friends in most aspects of life and still be utterly perplexed by your ideas, even if they start seeing them working in practice. We all fly to our comfort zones. But this means that being a good student, a hard worker or a loyal friend is not sufficient to cross the threshold into realizing something original. What you can rely on to make that crossing are tools of logic and reason: first do some philosophy and determine your thesis. Find principles, themes and references to give it structure to hang the work off of. Make sure it coheres in an explicable way, with logical premises: compare everything pair-wise, make diagrams, whatever you have to do. There are a lot of possible "systems" but having one is the important thing. You do not want to be in a position of blind faith in the idea alone, and a strong high-level concept has the power of making it easier to rationalize, explain, and argue for a certain way of doing, thus eliminating your doubts. Once you have some starting point, generate requirements with binary true/false factors: it must have this, it cannot have that. Sketching out requirements can tell you something about the principles you have in mind so it helps to cycle between the two a bit. But you don't build a solid project just on requirements because those are so often subject to whims: "why do it that way?" "meh, felt like it." You instead challenge each requirement against the broader idea to ensure that it works at scale. From the aggregate of binary factors, key metrics to focus on also appear. And as you do requirement generation, the motivation to do the work appears naturally because you have to do it to answer the question! And of course, doing this, it becomes a marathon, not a sprint, because it quickly takes you out of the space where you just grab off-the-shelf solutions and slap it together. You start going well out of the comfort zone to answer your question. Now you have experiments to run and research to follow up on. The principles and themes of the project never change once established, they only become more refined and nuanced as you evaluate what the best means of achieving them are. And I think that is, in essence, how you do it. You can achieve something resembling a successful creative work by accident, but if you stick to a principled approach your chances improve sharply.

hyperpallium 7y ago

Problems with talking to people: (1) can't communicate it properly (2) too few people to hit one who loves it What worked for me: make an absolutely minimal version of the idea (2 hours), and a webpage that describes its promise (9 hours). 500 people looked at it, one thought it was cool - that was enough for me.