5 ms·

For me, it's harder and harder to find the initial novelty that made programming fun. Starting out, writing some Borland C++ code to render a pixelated 16-colo

by Tempest1981 3y ago

For me, it's harder and harder to find the initial novelty that made programming fun. Starting out, writing some Borland C++ code to render a pixelated 16-color 3D sphere on a VGA monitor was magic! Now, even a beautifully ray-traced photoreal landscape would be an unimpressive yawn. How do you find that novelty? That magic? Is this burnout, or something different?

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
Perhaps it’s just me not having been a professional dev for as long but, perhaps moving to new fields, topics, or ideas could help? Like building an operating system, or a hypervisor, or a vm for some made up language, or an autograd engine, or something that sounds absurd. What about an optimizing compiler? Maybe venturing into project Euler could help? What about learning about approximation algorithms? Or randomized ones? What about numerical optimisation? Maybe the magic is not in the not knowing, but in knowing how things are done, seeing the connections between things and building beautiful abstractions that just work.
whstl 3y ago
The magic for me was never in the end result, but in knowing how to do. I think it is a sign of the times that a lot of people think there isn't fun or magic in programming anymore. With the internet there's always know-it-alls going "why should I use your programming language instead of Python?" when you show people an experiment. Or maybe you build an internal app that solves a problem at work and there's 20 people saying "why didn't you just use Notion". But even before that... I remember building a primitive text-to-voice synthesizer in the 90s and showing some friends, and they just said it was crap because they saw something on TV that was better. Of course mine was just a toy, but I remember even as a kid wondering why they were comparing the accomplishments of a 15 year old with IBM... On the other hand, I made some internet forums back then and on-line people people loved it. So maybe ask yourself who's doing the yawning. Is it other people vicariously basking in someone else's glory? Or is it yourself not enjoying the journey. EDIT: That actually reminds of magic. Some people say that magic tricks shouldn't be revealed. Well, I will admit that I yawn at magic and magicians, but I enjoy knowing how the tricks are performed.
- dontmobile 3y ago
  There's a difference between magic performed for others and magic performed for yourself. When you perform magic for other people it should be on par with if not better than what they've seen before. When you perform for yourself... Anything goes. You set your own bar.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - whstl 3y ago
    I believe it depends if you're showing it to hackers/creators or to the peanut gallery. The second group really won't care about how it's made or what can be learned, and won't care about sharing the experience... Which is fine, but makes their opinion absolutely useless, unless your product is targeting them.
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  Hacking for the sake of hacking is a fine purpose!
z500 3y ago
I've had some of the most fun I've had in a long time just writing a calculator for Risc OS in pure ARM assembly. Maybe I've just been aiming too high?
systems_glitch 3y ago
Back to fundamentals. Write something on a constrained system (microcontroller, old hardware, artificial boundaries). When it works, squeeze it down. Works for me, anyway :P
- Tempest1981 3y ago
  Yep, good idea, thanks! I want to make a Raspberry Pi with a camera, that sends me a text when the delivery truck drops off a package. I was looking into YOLO, although every year it seems like the tools change. And not sure if I need to do training separately. Lots to learn. I guess it's harder to find time to learn the basics -- vs the old days where all you needed was a few `for` loops and some math.
comonoid 3y ago
Programming have become an industry. It is all about profit.
hnuser847 3y ago
> For me, it's harder and harder to find the initial novelty that made programming fun. I struggled with that for years before finally accepting that the magic wasn’t coming back. I’ve since moved on to other non-tech interests that are giving me that sense of magic again. I think what a lot of us found to be so magical and entrancing was the initial process of discovery and learning. At least for me, it was downright addicting to figure out how to bend the computer to my will, but the thing about that phase is that it’s kind of a one time deal. Once you’ve learned how to write software to a professional level, the only way to keep the magic alive is to keep going deeper. And frankly I got to a point where I didn’t want to spend any more time in front of screen.
- BalKinYellow 3y ago
  This. Since first getting paid for programming I've almost never programmed on my own time. Sometime I do still get in flow but rarely given what I'm tasked. Also started "labor" hobbies (car maintenance, welding, etc) but I think a professional mechanic or welder would say the same thing about their jobs. Why? "Professional" (aka money) ruins everything after a while. You get to a point where all you do is the same thing over and over, maybe with slight variations in between. Unless one has full, money no object, choice of what jobs to accept, this will happen.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago

Perhaps it’s just me not having been a professional dev for as long but, perhaps moving to new fields, topics, or ideas could help? Like building an operating system, or a hypervisor, or a vm for some made up language, or an autograd engine, or something that sounds absurd. What about an optimizing compiler? Maybe venturing into project Euler could help? What about learning about approximation algorithms? Or randomized ones? What about numerical optimisation? Maybe the magic is not in the not knowing, but in knowing how things are done, seeing the connections between things and building beautiful abstractions that just work.

whstl 3y ago

The magic for me was never in the end result, but in knowing how to do. I think it is a sign of the times that a lot of people think there isn't fun or magic in programming anymore. With the internet there's always know-it-alls going "why should I use your programming language instead of Python?" when you show people an experiment. Or maybe you build an internal app that solves a problem at work and there's 20 people saying "why didn't you just use Notion". But even before that... I remember building a primitive text-to-voice synthesizer in the 90s and showing some friends, and they just said it was crap because they saw something on TV that was better. Of course mine was just a toy, but I remember even as a kid wondering why they were comparing the accomplishments of a 15 year old with IBM... On the other hand, I made some internet forums back then and on-line people people loved it. So maybe ask yourself who's doing the yawning. Is it other people vicariously basking in someone else's glory? Or is it yourself not enjoying the journey. EDIT: That actually reminds of magic. Some people say that magic tricks shouldn't be revealed. Well, I will admit that I yawn at magic and magicians, but I enjoy knowing how the tricks are performed.

dontmobile 3y ago
There's a difference between magic performed for others and magic performed for yourself. When you perform magic for other people it should be on par with if not better than what they've seen before. When you perform for yourself... Anything goes. You set your own bar.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- whstl 3y ago
  I believe it depends if you're showing it to hackers/creators or to the peanut gallery. The second group really won't care about how it's made or what can be learned, and won't care about sharing the experience... Which is fine, but makes their opinion absolutely useless, unless your product is targeting them.
systems_glitch 3y ago
Hacking for the sake of hacking is a fine purpose!

z500 3y ago

I've had some of the most fun I've had in a long time just writing a calculator for Risc OS in pure ARM assembly. Maybe I've just been aiming too high?

systems_glitch 3y ago

Back to fundamentals. Write something on a constrained system (microcontroller, old hardware, artificial boundaries). When it works, squeeze it down. Works for me, anyway :P

Tempest1981 3y ago
Yep, good idea, thanks! I want to make a Raspberry Pi with a camera, that sends me a text when the delivery truck drops off a package. I was looking into YOLO, although every year it seems like the tools change. And not sure if I need to do training separately. Lots to learn. I guess it's harder to find time to learn the basics -- vs the old days where all you needed was a few `for` loops and some math.

comonoid 3y ago

Programming have become an industry. It is all about profit.

hnuser847 3y ago

> For me, it's harder and harder to find the initial novelty that made programming fun. I struggled with that for years before finally accepting that the magic wasn’t coming back. I’ve since moved on to other non-tech interests that are giving me that sense of magic again. I think what a lot of us found to be so magical and entrancing was the initial process of discovery and learning. At least for me, it was downright addicting to figure out how to bend the computer to my will, but the thing about that phase is that it’s kind of a one time deal. Once you’ve learned how to write software to a professional level, the only way to keep the magic alive is to keep going deeper. And frankly I got to a point where I didn’t want to spend any more time in front of screen.

BalKinYellow 3y ago
This. Since first getting paid for programming I've almost never programmed on my own time. Sometime I do still get in flow but rarely given what I'm tasked. Also started "labor" hobbies (car maintenance, welding, etc) but I think a professional mechanic or welder would say the same thing about their jobs. Why? "Professional" (aka money) ruins everything after a while. You get to a point where all you do is the same thing over and over, maybe with slight variations in between. Unless one has full, money no object, choice of what jobs to accept, this will happen.