
Ask HN: Bored with Drupal, and web development in general. - knieveltech
I feel like I'm in a rut. Every project is the same unrewarding iteration of speccing out a few site customizations and writing glue code to get contributed modules behaving the way I want them.<p>It's getting to the point that I'd rather do home improvement projects or dick around in my garage than do anything with my computer in my spare time.<p>Anyone else run into this kind of career funk and if so what did you do to shake it off?
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joshontheweb
I was in the same place using Drupal primarily. I found excitement by joining
a startup company. Startups typically need to build web apps that are so
customized that it doesn't make sense to use a CMS. I found writing code at a
lower level really helped me learn a lot more and captivated my interest. No
longer was I having to play by the maddening rules of the CMS. Its more
challenging but more rewarding and helps you learn whats really going on
behind the surface. I would roughly equate coding in drupal to using windows
where they try to hide the 'insides' of the application from the developer.
You are learning more about the CMS's API and not the underlying processes.
Using a lower level framework (rails, django, express) is more like unix where
it is more transparent and easier to customize but demands some real
understanding. Or just not using a framework at all is nice but can burn a lot
of time. Everyone should build their own atleast once, but after that let the
frameworks to the boring stuff and stick to coding the fun stuff.

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dadro
I've been dealing with the exact same problem. I've been working with Drupal
for about 4 years now. I've coded some contrib modules, submitted patches to
core, attended Drupalcons, etc and am just not that excited by it anymore.
Recently I felt as though I was spending most of my time configuring Drupal
and not actually developing anything. I was bored out of my mind at work.

On the side I've been working on a few Rails and Node.js projects. I found
them to be enjoyable to code and intellectually stimulating. An opportunity
came along a few weeks ago to join a Rails based consulting firm. I start in a
few weeks and can't remember the last time I was this excited about work.

As some of the other commenters mentioned, I'm hoping the lower level stuff is
the breath of fresh air needed. Everyone is different but maybe you should
consider switching things up a little and jumping into a new technology stack.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

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ChrisNorstrom
Too much of anything makes you bored. You obviously don't find development as
satisfying or fulfilling as you once did. So take a break from it. I've had
this before with freelancing, I burnt out, left and found even more fulfilling
things to do like work on my own projects and inventions.

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chris_dcosta
Honestly I feel like this every January - believe me. I think it's because
there is a rush of activity leading up to the holidays, and it can be so busy
that January just seems flat and dull.

The project I'm working on I haven't looked at seriously for 3-4 weeks. Partly
on purpose, and partly because I'm a bit bored doing it for myself. I've got
plenty of fresh ideas, but no incentive at the moment.

Is this what you're talking about? Or is it more what @joshontheweb was
talking about?

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knieveltech
I think you both make good points. I hadn't even considered the possibility
that this could be related to some kind of post holiday head funk. Back when I
just coded for my own amusement I was much more likely to write network
utilities in C or screw around with assembly language than make webpages
though, so there may be some truth to both viewpoints.

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whichdan
Why not focus on writing your own (lightweight) framework or looking for a
more long-term project? Maybe try using something like Symfony to mix things
up? Try to create an ecosystem where you can spend time creating new code
instead of trying to mush and mash different pieces together.

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drKarl
Well, I have barely worked with Drupal/Joomla/other or Magento/Prestashop or
even PHP in general, and I've always thought it would be quite boring after
the first CRM/e-Commerce site, as you said, to put together some plugins and
glue-code, some customizations and few more...

On the other side, I've worked extensively with Java, and on a lesser extent
with Scala, C++, C# and other languages, Unity3D, etc on projects which have
little to do with CRMs.

Perhaps you're not bored of working with computer, just worked of the
reiteration of the same project with little variations and the technology
you're using...

Try something different!

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jluan
Work on hardware problems! <http://techshop.ws/>

