
You weren't born to just write code and die - snow_mac
http://www.adambourg.com/2016/02/01/invest-in-yourself/
======
JBReefer
But I like writing code, a lot. I like biking and trains and taking pictures
and fashion and working out, but why does it always feel like those are given
more social credence as a use of time?

TBH I'd really like to write a lot of code and then die, that seems so much
more satisfying than a ton of other jobs I've done...

------
snow_mac
I removed all links to Amazon and others, except for the photo credits. I am
not an Amazon Associate, I was just trying to link to be helpful.

~~~
maxerickson
Yeah, people were confused by links like this one:

[http://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Acid-Reflux-Diet-
Cookbook/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Acid-Reflux-Diet-
Cookbook/dp/0982708319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453224107&sr=8-1&keywords=low+acid+diet)

Which has some traces of how you navigated through amazon to get to the page
(the ref= and such). That's according to reddit anyway:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/qim88/referral_code...](https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/qim88/referral_codes_how_can_you_identify_them/)
. An associate referral would apparently be tag=.

I guess if you want to put the links back in, links like:

[http://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Acid-Reflux-Diet-
Cookbook/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Acid-Reflux-Diet-
Cookbook/dp/0982708319)

will incite less whinging.

------
kittenfluff
There are an awful lot of referrer links in this article. That's not a bad
thing by itself, but it always makes me ask the question - Did this person
write the article they wanted to write and then add referrer links, or did
they decide to put in a load of referrer links and then build an article
around it?

~~~
snow_mac
I put links in my article without referrals. I make no money from it. Just
linking to things I think are useful

------
justaman
Perhaps in several thousand years when humanity has been overtaken by bio-
augmentations and genetic engineering, when consciousness can be uploaded and
modified. "We" will look back at human beings as only the precursor to life.
In this sense, you most certainly were born to write code and die.

------
tootie
Those tips seem to be to enable to code more and die a little later. The key
to getting more satisfaction from coding is to work on projects with clear
value to people.

------
newobj
Life advice that involves buying a msft ergo keyboard.

~~~
bdcravens
Supposedly respected names like Jeff Atwood and Scott Hanselman say the same
thing (not the brand necessarily, but the idea that you should buy a good
keyboard ... I say this as I type on a $170 Das Keyboard ....)

Atwood cares so much about this that he even has his own keyboard:
codekeyboards.com (edit: corrected domain) (which I have at office)

~~~
yurymik
I think codekeyboards.com will work better

~~~
bdcravens
thanks.. was typing from memory. An upvote for you :-)

------
draw_down
Find what you love and let it kill you. Sure you weren't born to just write
code and die, but you weren't really born for any purpose, so you have to
decide what it is yourself. And then you'll die. And what came before will
have to have been enough.

To some people this idea is fundamentally liberating, personally I find it
tragic. But my point is that it's a sad situation no matter what. You can
exercise if you want, you can buy cool gear. it's coming nevertheless.

------
hardwaresofton
Did anyone notice that the "previous" link at the end of the article was to an
entry named "Live and die by the keyboard: How to be more productive!"?

Good article -- though I feel like it might be common sense to most adults...
Do stuff you like while balancing the rest of your life and responsibilities.

~~~
snow_mac
Lol, thats a great point.

------
JDiculous
It's a sad reflection of our times that an article with this title even needs
to be written.

~~~
ashark
Agreed. It's a pity that posts like this are any more interesting or notable
than a posts explaining why it's important to maintain basic hygiene and eat
well. This _should_ be something that'd only be news to _e.g._ second graders.
Ideally a (minimum) half-semester survey of the problem(s) of and major
thoughts on "the good life" would find its way into most people's formal
education.

------
elcapitan
Site has been hackernewsed, cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.adambourg.com/2016/02/01/invest-
in-yourself/)

------
spydum
"Error establishing a database connection".. i dont know why, but seeing this
in 2016 still cracks me up.

~~~
elcapitan
Why is it so hard to build blog engines that simply write articles to
disk/cache and just use the db for content management?

~~~
snow_mac
I forgot to setup caching

------
hackaflocka
I think a good measure of one's success is how much time one has where one can
do anything one wants.

------
FloNeu
Sure... i just want the opportunity to write good code, once, before i die and
getting paid for it :)

------
iolothebard
Tea is hard on your kidneys, hope you don't get stones :-)

------
jheriko
no. i make myself write code until i die... :)

~~~
mchahn
And there are people with a bit of mental illness, like myself, who _have to_
code all the time. I do exercise on a treadmill, but I have a keyboard/monitor
on the treadmill so I can keep working.

------
sharemywin
good thing I checked the comments out first.

------
roosterjm2k2
What a bunch of asshats you guys are being, they were never referral links, he
was including them to be useful... you guys that were complaining are quite
honestly horrible people for doing so...

~~~
OhHeyItsE
seriously. talk about herd mentality.

------
gegtik
Good ideas, too bad about the Andrew Weil connection
[http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/weil.html](http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/weil.html)
[https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/tag/Andrew-
Weil/](https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/tag/Andrew-Weil/)

etc etc

------
mfringel
It's definitely one of the densest Amazon Associates linkfarms I've seen in a
while.

EDIT: I stand corrected. It had high link density to Amazon, but did not have
associates tags.

~~~
snow_mac
I am not an associate. I put links in my article without referrals. I make no
money from it. Just linking to things I think are useful

------
herbig
Ha, yeah. Lots and lots of Amazon products, with referral codes.

Garbage self promotion submitted by the author himself.

~~~
dang
There's nothing wrong with authors submitting their own articles to HN. On the
contrary, authors honor HN by sharing their work here and engaging with the
community about it.

As for the Amazon links, if it's actually true that they were just links, not
referrals, then you owe him an apology for more than just being rude.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11014139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11014139)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
herbig
I find it to be garbage self promotion when an article with little and/or poor
content is submitted by the author and immediately gets 10+ upvotes without
any comments, sending it straight to the front page.

In this case, straight to the front page despite many negative comments about
the content.

If the article is not an Amazon link farm, it sure as hell reads exactly like
one. So much so that my assumption is that the author intended to add in
referral codes at a later date when reaching peak audience.

~~~
bdcravens
As author has since removed links, this should address your concern. Being
wary of Amazon links is probably smart, but referring to something as
"garbage" just makes you a jerk.

~~~
herbig
No no. My main concern is authors gaming HN to promote terrible content.

~~~
dang
I've looked at the data and there is zero evidence that the author gamed HN.

You need to stop slinging accusations at people. Gaming HN is bad. We greatly
appreciate your and other users' concern about that, and believe me we share
it. But undermining civility on HN is also bad, and that's the bad thing that
actually is happening here. Please don't do it anymore, regardless of how weak
you think an article is.

~~~
snow_mac
I only submitted this as a link to Hacker News, Echo JS and Reddit. Not gaming
any system, just sharing what I wrote. Isn't that the point of a blog?

~~~
dang
Yes, and it's ok. (I'm a moderator here, btw, so it really is ok.)

The 'gaming' in question was about getting people to upvote one's stuff.
That's against the rules, but we saw no evidence you did it. This is why I
chided the user who made that accusation. It's corrosive of the civility we
strive for here when people make accusations without real grounds for them.

------
its2complicated
Well, that was a big waste of time. I'm glad I only skimmed it instead of
reading it. It also had too many links.

