

Programming Is Not Fun - Garbage
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ProgrammingIsNotFun

======
wccrawford
I got news for you: Yes it is.

I love it. It was my hobby when I was young. So much so, that I thought
working in the field would kill the fun of it, so I avoided that. Eventually,
needing a career (and not just a job), I went into programming professionally.

It didn't kill the fun. In fact, it's now more fun than ever.

Programming is fun.

~~~
devmonk
Have you done at least 10-15 years of it and are still a coder and not a
manager?

~~~
marssaxman
18 years, here: still coding, still loving it, no interest in becoming a
manager.

~~~
cagey
Ditto @ 21 years! It's not work, it's a hobby I happen to get paid (well) to
spend time doing (well). The field is sufficiently vast, with "new things"
(that I can teach myself at 0 cost, not including time) "coming out" at an
ever increasing rate that there isn't the slightest chance I'll run out of
things to learn. Plus almost all of my "old knowledge" is still relevant.

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devmonk
Funny, but someone needs to add a
"WhatProgrammersCanDoWhenProgrammingIsNotFun" page that talks about
entrepreneurial activities, business, etc. that people bored of development
can get into.

I'm burnt out on programming, mostly because I find joy in business and doing
good. I have very little joy in my current job, but I do it because it's my
job. I would leave, but I have a family, I don't have income to replace it
yet. I want my own successful business, and I'm here to hopefully on HN learn
more about that.

I think it would be interesting for someone to do a survey on programming
burnout. I know some former programmers, so I know there would be more than
people think out there.

~~~
softbuilder
>someone needs to add a "WhatProgrammersCanDoWhenProgrammingIsNotFun" page

It's a wiki. Go for it! :)

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andywood
Programming is not fun when you're constrained by people, methodologies, or
technologies that you don't agree with on the inside. It's great fun when you
do it at home, or on a small team of like-minded people, because you get to
pick what you work on and how. The more other people are pushing you to make
choices that you wouldn't make yourself, the less fun it is, because that's
basically the essence of stress.

------
nlawalker
Programming is fun, but _shipping_ is not fun, and shipping is your job:
[http://www.removingalldoubt.com/PermaLink.aspx/a32977e2-cb7d...](http://www.removingalldoubt.com/PermaLink.aspx/a32977e2-cb7d-42ea-9d25-5e539423affd)

~~~
seancron
Off topic, but that's one of the oddest permalinks I've seen. Is that a uuid
on the end of the url? Any particular reason why it's that format?

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Sakes
I've worked for a couple companies over my 7 year programming career. I have
experienced the emotions expressed in this article. The problem isn't that
programming is not fun, it's that programming for the wrong company isn't fun.

The source of my passion for programming is learning, and if a company doesn't
support your thirst for knowledge and creativity, then it's time to find a new
company!

------
dandelany
While I disagree with the thesis, this part strikes me as almost universally
true, in my experience:

 _Everything Seems to Suck._ Every new thing that is supposed to solve the
problems of the old things has its own problems. By the time all the bugs in
the new thing is fixed, it's an old thing.

------
ZeroMinx
"However, after some time doing it professionally, it loses its fun-ness."

I'd claim this applies to any hobby turned into a profession.

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sidewinder
I've been programming in the aerospace/defense industry for 5 years now. For
me, programming has stayed fun because I get to work on interesting problems
and see the fruits of my labor when a new product gets built and certified. My
biggest piece of advice for people is keep learning and find something new
when you get stuck in a rut, never settle!

I definitely agree with the authors "Lack of a Programming-Centric Career
Path" points. I recently ignored my gut and took on a management/leadership
role. It's good experience and the "right career move" but it's not what I
wanted at this time. Anyone wanting a programming career should read
"Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman".

------
edw519
Sorry, but I couldn't resist changing "Programming" to "Sex" to see what would
happen...

 _Sex Is Not Fun_

Then you're doing it wrong.

 _Most Sex Is Boring_

Find a new partner.

 _It's the Same Thrust, Over and Over Again_

That's how it's supposed to work.

 _Lack of a Sex-Centric Career Path_

Then make it your hobby.

 _Everyone Seems to Suck_

Are you bragging or complaining?

 _Women Are Clueless, and They Make Unreasonable Demands_

Take a Viagra.

 _Isolation_

Your hand is your friend.

 _Things Change Too Fast_

You took too many Viagra.

 _No Free Time_

Do 2 things at once.

 _Lack of Recognition_

"Oh, you're so good! You're so good!" Happy?

 _Your wife is a WellspringOfNegativity_

Thrust deeper.

 _You're Surrounded by a Bunch of Geeks_

Get better curtains.

 _You Never Feel Like You Accomplish Anything_

Turn her over.

 _Fun is not an attribute of sex_

Get some toys.

 _Sex Is Not Fun without Philosophy_

Read the Kama Sutra.

 _Work in Sex Only If You're Hardcore_

No argument here.

~~~
imasr
I'd give you 100 votes if I could! (gave you one, though)

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samtp
"We must imagine Sisyphus happy" - Albert Camus

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joshdev
It's all in how you approach programming. If you view it as a puzzle and enjoy
finding new ways to optimize some workflow it can be very enjoyable. Yes there
are tedious moments, but those goes with just about any career out there and
I'd argue that programming has a lot less tediousness compared to other jobs
out there.

The question to ask yourself, is if you are finding programming not fun, is
this really the career path for you? Don't waste your time doing something you
don't enjoy.

~~~
j_baker
At one point, I'd have voted this up. But programming itself simply isn't what
is not fun. I can easily take the tedium of programming in stride.

The problem is that few employers will pay you to solve puzzles and optimize
workflow. They pay you to put out a product that makes them money.

~~~
haploid
Optimizing workflow _does_ make money.

------
Mithrandir
...but hacking sure as hell is.

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runT1ME
What an interesting claim!

That's like saying 'plucking strings on a guitar is not fun'. Well, no, if
you're just doing it to see what it's like, or hell, I imagine even playing a
really crappy annoying song is rather miserable.

However, if you're composing and playing something beautiful, well, it's
probably one of the most enjoyable things you can do.

~~~
_delirium
I could easily see playing an instrument turning not-fun if you do it as a
full-time job, especially if you're doing it as an employee with minimal
creative control, in a fairly big organization, which is the place a lot of
programmers find themselves.

The musician version might be: playing guitar in a Las Vegas casino's house
band. Pays the bills, but it's not many musicians' dream, and it surely gets
un-fun after a few weeks, let alone years.

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jhrobert
c2 was such an amazing community!

~~~
marssaxman
Too bad its discussion threads are so hard to read.

------
robryan
Sometimes many of the individual tasks in a project could be considered not
fun but the goal and the journey as a whole is. The same concept I guess with
why people in WoW would spend hours doing things they wouldn't consider fun at
all in order to achieve a goal which will be a fun payoff.

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bugsy
I derive great personal satisfaction from creating new useful things that are
of high quality.

Most of the process of doing so is a pain in the butt though, and is neither
fun nor easy.

Sure, it can be fun to hack together some little script that no one but myself
will ever use and which only contains the exact features I need. Making
something of commercial quality with intuitive usability amazingly not ruined
by a deep feature set is a completely different issue though.

A lot of people who say programming is always fun seem to primarily release
unusable open source stuff that is a nightmare to fix to get it working at all
on any computer other than the developer's own machine, or they only work on
trivial problems in a limited domain.

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jimmyjazz14
I feel like most of the points made in the article could be modified to fit
pretty much any career path. Work isn't always fun, that's why they call it
work.

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cafard
Well, compared to quite a few jobs I have held, programming is fun. Will you
find more fun and fulfillment as a bus boy in a restaurant? As a delivery
driver?

~~~
wladimir
Indeed, they need to stop comparing it to other leasure activitied and instead
to other work activities. And compared to most other types of work I find
programming really interesting. Then again I find management and business and
politics really boring...

------
Orca
Programming isn't as fun as building and creating.

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buzzblog
There's a reason it's called work.

~~~
chc
PG wrote an interesting essay on this assumption (work = suck) a few years
back: <http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html>

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jrockway
This article is mistitled, it should be "Code monkeying is not fun".
Programming is as fun as you make it, but what the article describes is not
programming.

What makes programming fun is _reuse_ ; you only ever have to do something
once. If all you do is move data around, display it, or glue modules together,
you are not implementing your solutions abstractly enough.

