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I've only gotten burned out when I was forced to work on projects I hated for long periods of time. I guess I've been lucky in the fact that I've never truly b

I've only gotten burned out when I was forced to work on projects I hated for long periods of time. I guess I've been lucky in the fact that I've never truly been so burned out that I've stopped coding completely. I still get that feeling that I used to get when I first started writing software 16 years ago. The key is to have interesting personal projects. Even if I'm working on a project I hate, I can always find some piece of it that I like (and I can use for future projects).

flatline 15y ago
Having a personal project, or even something I'm just studying on the side, gives me a feeling of freedom and control over my life which I increasingly feel less of in other areas, with marriage, a mortgage, children, and especially a job with projects that I hate. Not that those things aren't all fine (well maybe not the bad job), but not being beholden to anyone else, having the pleasure to mess up or explore dead ends without worrying about the cost, are very nice in the face of all of life's other responsibilities. I think this goes back to Feynman's spirit of play, but there is more to it than just "having fun" in my opinion, at least it's a lot more complex than that for me personally.
rehack 15y ago
Ditto for me. Or almost the same :-) I have been writing software for over 17 years now, and never got bored of writing code. In fact, in between years where I was sort of pushed into management were stressful. I realized that (hopefully) I am going to be programming for a long period of time. And last 5 years on my own have been very fulfilling in that respect, and I am very thankful for it. The bulk of my last big project is in Java/GWT. But off late I am back to loving C++. And I want to write more software in C++. Even considering moving something from Java to C++. I got inspired by GIT being done in C. And wrote one fairly good piece of code in all three Java/C++ & C. Before finally adopting C++. The reason was memory usage wise there was very little difference between C & C++. And as somebody above mentions about finding joy in getting things to compile. I am getting that too. C++ just feels fast after working in Java.

flatline 15y ago

Having a personal project, or even something I'm just studying on the side, gives me a feeling of freedom and control over my life which I increasingly feel less of in other areas, with marriage, a mortgage, children, and especially a job with projects that I hate. Not that those things aren't all fine (well maybe not the bad job), but not being beholden to anyone else, having the pleasure to mess up or explore dead ends without worrying about the cost, are very nice in the face of all of life's other responsibilities. I think this goes back to Feynman's spirit of play, but there is more to it than just "having fun" in my opinion, at least it's a lot more complex than that for me personally.

rehack 15y ago

Ditto for me. Or almost the same :-) I have been writing software for over 17 years now, and never got bored of writing code. In fact, in between years where I was sort of pushed into management were stressful. I realized that (hopefully) I am going to be programming for a long period of time. And last 5 years on my own have been very fulfilling in that respect, and I am very thankful for it. The bulk of my last big project is in Java/GWT. But off late I am back to loving C++. And I want to write more software in C++. Even considering moving something from Java to C++. I got inspired by GIT being done in C. And wrote one fairly good piece of code in all three Java/C++ & C. Before finally adopting C++. The reason was memory usage wise there was very little difference between C & C++. And as somebody above mentions about finding joy in getting things to compile. I am getting that too. C++ just feels fast after working in Java.