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Programming is only less exciting if you keep yourself in the CRUD-webapps-mobile apps space. Technology and miniaturization have resulted in incredible capabil

by bri3d 15y ago

Programming is only less exciting if you keep yourself in the CRUD-webapps-mobile apps space. Technology and miniaturization have resulted in incredible capability for embedded devices that are at least as (if not more) exciting for me than discovering programming for the first time in the 1990s was. If you're bored of programming for the web, try branching out into a field where there's no debate about NoSQL, people aren't re-discovering binary trees for the ten thousandth time, and there's no re-invention of JavaScript on the server - try programming something real. For me it's quadcopters and fixed-wing UAVs. For you it might be something else. Embedded development is somewhere where real technological advance will always push the field forward. There's always something new you can build if only your CPU gets smaller, or draws less power, or some sensor becomes available. Plus, you'll learn a lot about programming close-to-the-metal, data structures, basic algorithms, and the industrial control algorithms that run devices in your daily life - which will both expand your horizons and make you a better web programmer, to boot.

shoover 15y ago
Exactly. Sure, technology fads are like a carousel, but that matters most if you insist on staying ON the carousel and make part of your living writing about the fads. I started in this millennium, but I've done it long enough to know that learning and using a new piece of tech is only superficially satisfying. What's exciting is building something that solves a problem. If I lose track of that and get bored, nothing is more motivating than coming across a coder who bangs out code using the tech he knows to solve problems. It's amazing to see what Rich Hickey can do with a pile of Java or Zed Shaw with a pile of C, to name two examples I've encountered. No need to complain or pontificate (or at least keep it to a minimum), just build things and solve problems.
- bri3d 15y ago
  Agreed, and I think a lot of the angst amongst CRUD/web-app developers stems from a rapidly shrinking number of truly new problems to solve in the domain - hence the focus on yak-shaving, "platforms" to eke out the last few marginal efficiencies in creating a web-app, and re-inventions of the 1980s. That's why I love embedded - because the domain contains a lot of problems which are constrained by hardware (which so far is still holding to Moore's law), there are always a number of new problems for software to solve.
julsonl 15y ago
I've always wanted to get into the DIY drones crowd, but can't find enough motivation to actually start cranking up stuff. Back in college, I took microcontroller classes and programmed them in assembly, but missed the chance to build a cool robot due to financial issues (parts didn't come cheap where I came from).

by bri3d 15y ago

shoover 15y ago

Exactly. Sure, technology fads are like a carousel, but that matters most if you insist on staying ON the carousel and make part of your living writing about the fads. I started in this millennium, but I've done it long enough to know that learning and using a new piece of tech is only superficially satisfying. What's exciting is building something that solves a problem. If I lose track of that and get bored, nothing is more motivating than coming across a coder who bangs out code using the tech he knows to solve problems. It's amazing to see what Rich Hickey can do with a pile of Java or Zed Shaw with a pile of C, to name two examples I've encountered. No need to complain or pontificate (or at least keep it to a minimum), just build things and solve problems.

bri3d 15y ago
Agreed, and I think a lot of the angst amongst CRUD/web-app developers stems from a rapidly shrinking number of truly new problems to solve in the domain - hence the focus on yak-shaving, "platforms" to eke out the last few marginal efficiencies in creating a web-app, and re-inventions of the 1980s. That's why I love embedded - because the domain contains a lot of problems which are constrained by hardware (which so far is still holding to Moore's law), there are always a number of new problems for software to solve.

julsonl 15y ago

I've always wanted to get into the DIY drones crowd, but can't find enough motivation to actually start cranking up stuff. Back in college, I took microcontroller classes and programmed them in assembly, but missed the chance to build a cool robot due to financial issues (parts didn't come cheap where I came from).