3 ms·

A lot of these answers are about finding things other than programming, and I think that's great. But as some additional perspective- I believe I was in a simil

A lot of these answers are about finding things other than programming, and I think that's great. But as some additional perspective- I believe I was in a similar position to you, and what saved my career was functional programming. Basically I had grown really tired of solving every problem in the same way (create a new class, getters, setters... the same ol' object oriented stuff). And so I dove into Haskell which required new solutions to problems. And it made programming novel again for me. I was a beginner for the first time in over a decade; it was really challenging, and there were tons of new concepts that never popped up in the other mainstream languages. The thing I loved was that it allowed and encouraged me to find the _best_ solution to a problem, as opposed to just 'something that works'.

valenterry 6y ago
Was similar for me. The drawback is, once you get back your passion by finally understanding why many things have been so pointless without functional programming, your job options are now severely limited.
- sidcypher 6y ago
  Same for me, learned Haskell a year ago. I have to note that your options only feel more limited if you refuse to look back and acknowledge the "wrong" ways. Your job options were always numerous, you just filter out the unattractive ones, leaving them to the people who don't have that luxury :)
tome 6y ago
nthing this. I think I would have given up programming a few years ago if Haskell didn't exist. (Maybe I could have settled for OCaml or Clojure.) Probably I would have gone into management but I certainly wouldn't still be enjoying being an individual contributor! I'd also like to reiterate your final paragraph, in case anyone misinterprets you and thinks that Haskell is just about novelty or doing things a "different" way. For me it's about doing things a way that actually makes any sense at all. > The thing I loved was that it allowed and encouraged me to find the _best_ solution to a problem, as opposed to just 'something that works'.

valenterry 6y ago

Was similar for me. The drawback is, once you get back your passion by finally understanding why many things have been so pointless without functional programming, your job options are now severely limited.

sidcypher 6y ago
Same for me, learned Haskell a year ago. I have to note that your options only feel more limited if you refuse to look back and acknowledge the "wrong" ways. Your job options were always numerous, you just filter out the unattractive ones, leaving them to the people who don't have that luxury :)

tome 6y ago

nthing this. I think I would have given up programming a few years ago if Haskell didn't exist. (Maybe I could have settled for OCaml or Clojure.) Probably I would have gone into management but I certainly wouldn't still be enjoying being an individual contributor! I'd also like to reiterate your final paragraph, in case anyone misinterprets you and thinks that Haskell is just about novelty or doing things a "different" way. For me it's about doing things a way that actually makes any sense at all. > The thing I loved was that it allowed and encouraged me to find the _best_ solution to a problem, as opposed to just 'something that works'.