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I've been coding for 35 years and I've grown to hate it. Most of the work is boring. The things I absolutely loved doing, they require focus, and focus is somet

I've been coding for 35 years and I've grown to hate it. Most of the work is boring. The things I absolutely loved doing, they require focus, and focus is something I just don't get to have at this point in my life (young kids) and career (if I'm focused I'm neglecting my responsibilities). I've found AI to be a useful tool when using a new library (as long as the version is 2 years old) and in the limited use I've made of agents I can see the potential but also the dangers in wrong + eager hands.

hakunin 1y ago
I haven't seen many folks who actually hands-on programmed this long willingly and grown to hate it. Instead one is usually trying to become something else (CTO, executive, etc) but due to financial difficulties, struggle to make connections and promote themselves, had to keep writing code. Are you sure this wasn't more of your case? That said, I haven't programmed for 35 years yet (approaching 30 in my case), so I don't know how I might feel when I get there.
- lenkite 1y ago
  It can happen if you develop health issues like carpal tunnel or Sciatica due to extended sitting. Programming then gets mentally associated with pain.
- radicalbyte 1y ago
  Nope not at all. The first ~10 years were as a kid, so not professionally. Professionally I'm at the top of my niche and decided to work as a consultant instead of starting doing my own startup or starting an agency as I wasn't able to commit and have a family, and I loved writing code (and was bloody good at it, and at making my teams much much better by leading by example & helping them grow). I spent the pandemic being one of the key players in the pandemic response, writing a lot of code but also helping a load of teams over different countries collaborate, and anything else I could do to make everything work. Oh and bringing up kids at the same time. Now I'm at a startup, finally, and getting the engineering team off of the ground. Still trying to code (it's really hard to give up chasing the highs) a bit but there's less time for it and no time for the really hard deep dives (and I'm not willing to ignore my family to no-life it as others can do). With that context, yeah, it's not as enjoyable. Sure I could try and transition back to a full-time coding roll and yeah, I'd be working on fun puzzles and enjoying it, but that means my impact is more limited. It's a better use of my skills + experience to be doing what I'm doing. Pays more too but both pay well :-)
  - hakunin 1y ago
    Sounds very interesting, and at first I thought maybe you're an outlier, but the more I read people mention "solving puzzles", the more I notice a more fundamental difference in enjoying programming. For me it's not solving puzzles, but rather finding elegant/eloquent expression of something complex (feel like I'm more of a writer than an engineer). That's what makes me tick: clear code that can itself serve as a primary source of knowledge of how a business functions. If I work with an AI agent, I become an editor rather than a writer — a very different job.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    Uh, so in the end you pretty much ended up in a management role instead of coding and seems like you’re much happier that way. So not far off from the comment you replied to.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Started with computers in 1986, and I don't want to become something else other that programming related activities, even if only partially due to architecture and devops stuff, unless obliged to by external factors. Already did management tasks occasionally, and I rather be stuck on the last step of the career laddder with a job that makes me happy, than one I have to drag myself to office (physical or virtual one). Eventually if healthy enough close to retirement age, I might as well do something completly different than computing related.
gavmor 1y ago
> career (if I'm focused I'm neglecting my responsibilities). I'm confused—can you expand on this? What's "the work" that you've "grown to hate?" Is it "coding," or is it your "responsibilities?"
- andoando 1y ago
  If its any typical corporate job, as they said I imagine the coding is rather boring. We need a new feature. Ok add this controller, add some if statements for this business logic, make some api calls, add this to the db, write some models. Ok done, same thing over and over again. Id certainly love to be able to do the architecting part and have someone do the work
  - MattGaiser 1y ago
    I’ve found GitHub Copilot Agent quite good for this kind of coding. You write up the architecture you want and I paste it into an issue and it fills in the rest.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    As enterprise consultant, the "have someone do the work" is kind of complicated when the someone is not from the same office, if given the choice I would rather do that boring stuff myself.
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  Most non startup corporate programming jobs are just adding/removing features, add a checkbox here, squash this business logic bug, add a new dept code here, etc. You never build anything new, it's just piddly maintenance stuff.
- nunez 1y ago
  The way I read it (and I agree with, so biased) is that OP hates that the focus of writing code is generally-perceived as a negative, hence the proliferation of code assistants, AND hates that focus is harder to obtain because of life stuff.
ljm 1y ago
Only 20 years since it started as a hobby. There is programming that I enjoy doing for the fun of it or for experimentation and I wouldn’t use AI for that (most likely because it’d be something that isn’t well known or documented). If work wants me to use it for the job, then sure why not? That too is something new to learn how to do well, will possibly be important for future career growth, and is exciting in a different way. If anything, I’ve got spare mental compute by the end of the week and might even have energy to do my hobbyist stuff. Win win for me.
- fleebee 1y ago
  I on the other hand find agentic LLMs mentally draining. I can't enter a flow state since the workflow boils down to waiting and then getting interrupted, and then waiting again. Often the LLM does the wrong thing and then instead of moving to implement another feature, I'm stuck in a loop where I'm trying to get it to fix poor decisions or errors. It's possible I get a feature implemented faster thanks to agentic LLM, but the experience of overseeing and directing it is dreadful and pretty much invariably I end up with some sort of tech debt slop. I much prefer the chat interfaces for incorporating LLMs into my workflow.
ryandvm 1y ago
Damn, this hits hard. I used to love coding. Now, I can't even focus enough to make progress on my pet projects. And work stopped being fun a long time ago. I'm using Claude Code to push my development efforts along and it works like crazy, but I can't help but feel like it's a Faustian Bargain and 80% of this industry is going to evaporate over the next decade.

hakunin 1y ago

I haven't seen many folks who actually hands-on programmed this long willingly and grown to hate it. Instead one is usually trying to become something else (CTO, executive, etc) but due to financial difficulties, struggle to make connections and promote themselves, had to keep writing code. Are you sure this wasn't more of your case? That said, I haven't programmed for 35 years yet (approaching 30 in my case), so I don't know how I might feel when I get there.

lenkite 1y ago
It can happen if you develop health issues like carpal tunnel or Sciatica due to extended sitting. Programming then gets mentally associated with pain.
radicalbyte 1y ago
Nope not at all. The first ~10 years were as a kid, so not professionally. Professionally I'm at the top of my niche and decided to work as a consultant instead of starting doing my own startup or starting an agency as I wasn't able to commit and have a family, and I loved writing code (and was bloody good at it, and at making my teams much much better by leading by example & helping them grow). I spent the pandemic being one of the key players in the pandemic response, writing a lot of code but also helping a load of teams over different countries collaborate, and anything else I could do to make everything work. Oh and bringing up kids at the same time. Now I'm at a startup, finally, and getting the engineering team off of the ground. Still trying to code (it's really hard to give up chasing the highs) a bit but there's less time for it and no time for the really hard deep dives (and I'm not willing to ignore my family to no-life it as others can do). With that context, yeah, it's not as enjoyable. Sure I could try and transition back to a full-time coding roll and yeah, I'd be working on fun puzzles and enjoying it, but that means my impact is more limited. It's a better use of my skills + experience to be doing what I'm doing. Pays more too but both pay well :-)
- hakunin 1y ago
  Sounds very interesting, and at first I thought maybe you're an outlier, but the more I read people mention "solving puzzles", the more I notice a more fundamental difference in enjoying programming. For me it's not solving puzzles, but rather finding elegant/eloquent expression of something complex (feel like I'm more of a writer than an engineer). That's what makes me tick: clear code that can itself serve as a primary source of knowledge of how a business functions. If I work with an AI agent, I become an editor rather than a writer — a very different job.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Uh, so in the end you pretty much ended up in a management role instead of coding and seems like you’re much happier that way. So not far off from the comment you replied to.
pjmlp 1y ago
Started with computers in 1986, and I don't want to become something else other that programming related activities, even if only partially due to architecture and devops stuff, unless obliged to by external factors. Already did management tasks occasionally, and I rather be stuck on the last step of the career laddder with a job that makes me happy, than one I have to drag myself to office (physical or virtual one). Eventually if healthy enough close to retirement age, I might as well do something completly different than computing related.

gavmor 1y ago

> career (if I'm focused I'm neglecting my responsibilities). I'm confused—can you expand on this? What's "the work" that you've "grown to hate?" Is it "coding," or is it your "responsibilities?"

andoando 1y ago
If its any typical corporate job, as they said I imagine the coding is rather boring. We need a new feature. Ok add this controller, add some if statements for this business logic, make some api calls, add this to the db, write some models. Ok done, same thing over and over again. Id certainly love to be able to do the architecting part and have someone do the work
- MattGaiser 1y ago
  I’ve found GitHub Copilot Agent quite good for this kind of coding. You write up the architecture you want and I paste it into an issue and it fills in the rest.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  As enterprise consultant, the "have someone do the work" is kind of complicated when the someone is not from the same office, if given the choice I would rather do that boring stuff myself.
bongodongobob 1y ago
Most non startup corporate programming jobs are just adding/removing features, add a checkbox here, squash this business logic bug, add a new dept code here, etc. You never build anything new, it's just piddly maintenance stuff.
nunez 1y ago
The way I read it (and I agree with, so biased) is that OP hates that the focus of writing code is generally-perceived as a negative, hence the proliferation of code assistants, AND hates that focus is harder to obtain because of life stuff.

ljm 1y ago

Only 20 years since it started as a hobby. There is programming that I enjoy doing for the fun of it or for experimentation and I wouldn’t use AI for that (most likely because it’d be something that isn’t well known or documented). If work wants me to use it for the job, then sure why not? That too is something new to learn how to do well, will possibly be important for future career growth, and is exciting in a different way. If anything, I’ve got spare mental compute by the end of the week and might even have energy to do my hobbyist stuff. Win win for me.

fleebee 1y ago
I on the other hand find agentic LLMs mentally draining. I can't enter a flow state since the workflow boils down to waiting and then getting interrupted, and then waiting again. Often the LLM does the wrong thing and then instead of moving to implement another feature, I'm stuck in a loop where I'm trying to get it to fix poor decisions or errors. It's possible I get a feature implemented faster thanks to agentic LLM, but the experience of overseeing and directing it is dreadful and pretty much invariably I end up with some sort of tech debt slop. I much prefer the chat interfaces for incorporating LLMs into my workflow.

ryandvm 1y ago

Damn, this hits hard. I used to love coding. Now, I can't even focus enough to make progress on my pet projects. And work stopped being fun a long time ago. I'm using Claude Code to push my development efforts along and it works like crazy, but I can't help but feel like it's a Faustian Bargain and 80% of this industry is going to evaporate over the next decade.