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20 years is a long time in anything. My first piece of advice is that nobody here knows who you are, nobody here knew you as a teenager, and nobody is going to

20 years is a long time in anything. My first piece of advice is that nobody here knows who you are, nobody here knew you as a teenager, and nobody is going to understand what "love programming" and "don't enjoy it" actually means for you. The point is: anybody who claims that they got de-burned-out with this one trick isn't necessarily dishonest or naive, and if something in the comments here resonates, then by all means try it out. But they might be offering a good prescription for the wrong diagnosis. This may sound dismissive or condescending and I promise it isn't my intent: have you considered speaking with an actual therapist? As a society we tend to think of therapists as something you do when you're mentally ill, but you don't just go to the dentist when you suspect you have a cavity: mental hygiene is important, and humans are universally bad at self-diagnosis, either physiological or otherwise. In my current job I write Python, which I really don't like very much and I get burned out on Python-specific things. But I know my feelings of burnout are due to things that would be true regardless of the technical environment - and that an overall job with Python is far preferable to my previously miserable job with F#. And there's a lot of non-job stuff going on - such as the historic pandemic, and domestic stresses from being cooped up at home. So speaking with a therapist about what's actually eating you might be quite worthwhile. If it is just burnout with programming, there really are specialists out there who might give well-informed, non-anecdotal advice. If it's something else, then having a professional suss it out means you can make better decisions about major aspects of your life. Plus, therapy is something that's easy to do over videochat. I am not recommending therapy, but I do think you should consider it.

xupybd 7y ago
Sorry to change topics, but are you able to expand a little on what made F# miserable. I ask as I was looking at learning it in the hopes that it would provide a positive developer experience. I would be very interested in finding out why it didn't work for someone else.
- covidacct 7y ago
  Hopefully OP will response. I read ojna's post to mean that he prefers F# over Python, but that the rest of the job around the F# programming was miserable (maybe biz, org, process, and personality stuff was bad).
- DeathArrow 7y ago
  I think that depends on the particular job and the person.
- ojnabieoot 7y ago
  (sorry for the late response, I try to avoid social media of any form...) I love F#. F# is by far my favorite programming language when it comes to writing enterprise software. The problem with the F# job was that many on the sales team, and in upper management overall, were just bad people. They were a bad influence on my boss, the CTO and an otherwise good person. I ended up resigning over an ethics dispute.
munificent 7y ago
> As a society we tend to think of therapists as something you do when you're mentally ill, but you don't just go to the dentist when you suspect you have a cavity I started seeing a therapist about a year ago and went through a similar mental switch. I used to think of them as, like "mind doctors" to fix you when something is going wrong. But now I realize therapists are much more like personal trainers for your mind. I'm not mentally ill or suffering any particular crisis and I still get a ton of my therapy appointments. It's basically an hour with a really smart person deeply trained in psychology who helps me make the most out of my particular brain and personality.
jerzyt 7y ago
>>> In my current job I write Python, which I really don't like very much and I get burned out on Python-specific things. I've used Ruby for several years, and I love the language. I wish I could use it today, in my daily stack, but unfortunately, Python won in the marketplace. Syntactically, Ruby and Python are pretty much equivalent, with Ruby appealing more to me. However, Python won - no arguments. Got to go with the winner.
- cutler 7y ago
  I've been stuck on the horns of this dilemma for a while, at least for choice of a scripting language. Ruby and Python adoption is pretty similar if you're working in web devlopment rather than data science. In London the number of Rails and Django jobs is fairly equal. Agree, though, Python is racing adhead of Ruby in general and that makes me sad.
  - apotheon 7y ago
    From what I've seen, specifically-Ruby jobs tend to pay more than specifically-Python jobs (and more than specifically-Java jobs, for that matter), and while Rails and Django seem kinda balanced in some areas, in others Rails beats the tar out of Django for startup market share.
    - cutler 7y ago
      I don't know about that. Search angel.co and you'll find 36 hits for Ruby on Rails/London and 50 for Django/London. Same ratio on Indeed.co.uk/London.
      - apotheon 7y ago
        There's an iceberg of Ruby jobs that don't exist in the most obvious places to search, and because other languages have gained more spotlight (including anything that even smells of ECMAScript) there are fewer people searching for Rails jobs so the number of Rails jobs is pretty well matched to the number of job-seeking Rails devs. Also, early stage startups tend to hire from people they know, not from job search sites. Finally, there are many "full stack" jobs where work on the backend means Rails. A simplistic metric like "job listings on angel.co" (especially if you're specifically looking for Rails in the job posting title) don't tell the whole story.
chuck3201 7y ago
I'm also not trying to sound dismissive or condescending, but it really seems weird to me that if somebody says they are have been doing something for 20 years and now they are bored of it, then they should consider seeing a therapist? I mean, there are plenty of things I used to like that I don't anymore, should I go see a therapist every time my interests change?
- ProstetnicJeltz 7y ago
  I think it's more about your intent. I'm not too bothered I don't care about soccer any more, I'm not after therapy to change that. In this case though, I see someone who badly wants to be enjoying programming, but for whatever reason they don't understand they don't. It's probably a good time to talk to someone. Usually I'd start with my girlfriend, maybe my mum, perhaps take a few weeks off and then see how I feel. If that doesn't sort it, I'd probably want to talk to a therapist.
- llpg 7y ago
  I'm sorry but you are reducing a career to a mere interest. Changing hobbies is not the same as trying to change what you did for a living for the past decade.
  - greenyoda 7y ago
    Careers are not cast in stone. Some people do change their careers if they realize that there's something else that they'd really rather be doing with their lives. I've met an artist who became a doctor, a lawyer who became a stockbroker, a software developer who became a full-time professional musician, a professor who started a hedge fund, etc.
    - afiori 7y ago
      On the other hand if you are changing field because you are unhappy with your current situation it is relevant to ascertain that your current field is part/cause of the problem.
- 7y ago

xupybd 7y ago

Sorry to change topics, but are you able to expand a little on what made F# miserable. I ask as I was looking at learning it in the hopes that it would provide a positive developer experience. I would be very interested in finding out why it didn't work for someone else.

covidacct 7y ago
Hopefully OP will response. I read ojna's post to mean that he prefers F# over Python, but that the rest of the job around the F# programming was miserable (maybe biz, org, process, and personality stuff was bad).
DeathArrow 7y ago
I think that depends on the particular job and the person.
ojnabieoot 7y ago
(sorry for the late response, I try to avoid social media of any form...) I love F#. F# is by far my favorite programming language when it comes to writing enterprise software. The problem with the F# job was that many on the sales team, and in upper management overall, were just bad people. They were a bad influence on my boss, the CTO and an otherwise good person. I ended up resigning over an ethics dispute.

munificent 7y ago

> As a society we tend to think of therapists as something you do when you're mentally ill, but you don't just go to the dentist when you suspect you have a cavity I started seeing a therapist about a year ago and went through a similar mental switch. I used to think of them as, like "mind doctors" to fix you when something is going wrong. But now I realize therapists are much more like personal trainers for your mind. I'm not mentally ill or suffering any particular crisis and I still get a ton of my therapy appointments. It's basically an hour with a really smart person deeply trained in psychology who helps me make the most out of my particular brain and personality.

jerzyt 7y ago

>>> In my current job I write Python, which I really don't like very much and I get burned out on Python-specific things. I've used Ruby for several years, and I love the language. I wish I could use it today, in my daily stack, but unfortunately, Python won in the marketplace. Syntactically, Ruby and Python are pretty much equivalent, with Ruby appealing more to me. However, Python won - no arguments. Got to go with the winner.

cutler 7y ago
I've been stuck on the horns of this dilemma for a while, at least for choice of a scripting language. Ruby and Python adoption is pretty similar if you're working in web devlopment rather than data science. In London the number of Rails and Django jobs is fairly equal. Agree, though, Python is racing adhead of Ruby in general and that makes me sad.
- apotheon 7y ago
  From what I've seen, specifically-Ruby jobs tend to pay more than specifically-Python jobs (and more than specifically-Java jobs, for that matter), and while Rails and Django seem kinda balanced in some areas, in others Rails beats the tar out of Django for startup market share.
  - cutler 7y ago
    I don't know about that. Search angel.co and you'll find 36 hits for Ruby on Rails/London and 50 for Django/London. Same ratio on Indeed.co.uk/London.
    - apotheon 7y ago
      There's an iceberg of Ruby jobs that don't exist in the most obvious places to search, and because other languages have gained more spotlight (including anything that even smells of ECMAScript) there are fewer people searching for Rails jobs so the number of Rails jobs is pretty well matched to the number of job-seeking Rails devs. Also, early stage startups tend to hire from people they know, not from job search sites. Finally, there are many "full stack" jobs where work on the backend means Rails. A simplistic metric like "job listings on angel.co" (especially if you're specifically looking for Rails in the job posting title) don't tell the whole story.

chuck3201 7y ago

I'm also not trying to sound dismissive or condescending, but it really seems weird to me that if somebody says they are have been doing something for 20 years and now they are bored of it, then they should consider seeing a therapist? I mean, there are plenty of things I used to like that I don't anymore, should I go see a therapist every time my interests change?

ProstetnicJeltz 7y ago
I think it's more about your intent. I'm not too bothered I don't care about soccer any more, I'm not after therapy to change that. In this case though, I see someone who badly wants to be enjoying programming, but for whatever reason they don't understand they don't. It's probably a good time to talk to someone. Usually I'd start with my girlfriend, maybe my mum, perhaps take a few weeks off and then see how I feel. If that doesn't sort it, I'd probably want to talk to a therapist.
llpg 7y ago
I'm sorry but you are reducing a career to a mere interest. Changing hobbies is not the same as trying to change what you did for a living for the past decade.
- greenyoda 7y ago
  Careers are not cast in stone. Some people do change their careers if they realize that there's something else that they'd really rather be doing with their lives. I've met an artist who became a doctor, a lawyer who became a stockbroker, a software developer who became a full-time professional musician, a professor who started a hedge fund, etc.
  - afiori 7y ago
    On the other hand if you are changing field because you are unhappy with your current situation it is relevant to ascertain that your current field is part/cause of the problem.
7y ago