Man I wish I could get out of the field and just return to it being my hobby. Every now and then I get those periods of excitement, focus, etc. with my personal projects, but 90% of the time I want nothing to do with development.
If the thing holding you back from the change is your salary, then you're just renting out your life to someone else in exchange for money.
In that case, any job can pay rent for your life. It's just a question of whether you feel your life is worth the rent someone is willing to pay.
The difference between this job and others is that you are subsidizing the higher rent by covering the cost of your hobby time for them. You should consider reducing your perceived life rental income by the amount you're subsidizing and then compare jobs based on that unsubsidized amount.
You might stick with it anyways, or you might discover that there's better value to be had elsewhere.
My cousin's life dream has always been to be a chef. A while ago he finally made the transition, quit his job and started working as a chef in a restaurant. He was pretty disappointed to learn that it's... just another job.
The lesson is probably when you make your job out of your hobby, you lost your hobby and gained a job.
> labor is external to the worker. It does not belong to his nature. He does not realize himself in his work, that he denies himself in it. That he does not feel at ease in it but rather unhappy. He does not develop free physical and mental energy in it... The worker is only himself when he does not work, and in his work he feels outside himself. He feels at home when he’s not working. When working he does not feel at home...His labor is not voluntary but forced.
More likely, you hate modern hyper-specialized ways of production (in the broadest sense). Capitalism is what brought that mode of production about, but it's a prerequisite for any economic system that wants to be productive.
I think market socialism is a great idea and we should move towards it. I also think that it can occasionally give us all more agency, by increasing the power of employee representation and participation in firms.
However, I have little hope that it will truly move the needle on subjective/perceived alienation from our work for most people.
People hate Capitalism in the same way they hate Country Music.
They say, "I like all music except Country. I hate Country." And you say, "So you hate Johnny Cash?" And they say, "Oh. No, I like Johnny Cash. But I hate the rest of Country."
When people say "I like all music except Country" what they usually really mean is "I like all music except modern Pop-Country" because when you turn on the "Country" radio station you hear the modern pop country. I was the same way until I realized there's waaaay more good country music than what is played on the radio
Are you implying that people somehow don't need to work in communist countries? I was too young to work during USSR times, but I can assure you my parents and grandparents hated Mondays as much as my generation do, if not more.
There's work that you do for yourself and to benefit yourself and your community, but this kind of work is the kind which doesn't benefit you, only your boss. In the case of the USSR, your boss was the state, hence why the USSR's economy is often referred to as "state capitalism".
Arguments against your theory:
1. Inefficiencies of labor distribution / shortages in USSR.
2. There were bosses in the USSR, called party members. Someone needs to manage.
3. Decreased motivation for high performance due to smaller "CEO"/common laborer wage gaps.
4. Inability of USSR to compete in both consumer goods and other areas except in a few focus points (mainly military) such as - small scale nuclear, rocket propulsion, certain areas of medicine, certain sports (far more actual research done than in the US), cavitating torpedoes, stealth subs, IR seekers, thermobarics, fighter wing leading edge vacuum generation from the SU27 copied in the F-15/MIG29, VTOL lift, etc
I have to say I also enjoyed The Codeless Code. A search reveals that stories from there have been submitted to HN several times, though hardly ever commented on. There have been no new stories since 2016.
The Codeless Code is great and very entertaining, and sometimes one can learn some lessons from the stories. One that I remember to this day and always consider when building an application is the The White Pearl[0].
Such a great text.
However, the fact that the programmers are all "he" and the only reference to a female pronoun is a "hostess greeting her guests" was somewhat abrasive to me.
I get it -- it's written in an old style. And I don't want to censor art.
SO -- I made a "mod" for the book, that randomizes the pronouns each time.
https://xtao.stream
Still a WIP -- want to add more info/motivation to the site before really releasing it, but I wanted to share here & would love any feedback.. expecting downvotes.. ;)
Got em!
In all fairness, I do agree with the sentiment behind your trolling though. That's why I made this a "mod" where the user provides the original text.
It's an interesting approach to the "relevancy update" without suppressing or censoring the original. I -really- don't want to be the person breaking penises off statues or changing the edit so Han shoots in defense.
This is not rewriting of truth. This is Counter-Strike vs. Half-Life. An original-source-available remix.
I went through a major book downsizing ~7 years ago when I moved unexpectedly. I don't know the exact book count, but something like 60+ linear feet, down to a single armload. The Tao of Programming and The Tao of Pooh both made that cut.
Paring down a book collection is a very strange act for the bibliophile. I only did it once but the end result was a much sharper collection. (Un?)Fortunately since then I got a bigger place, more shelves, and now my collection is over 2x since then. But the day I donated a ton of books sticks out in my mind, I remember the weather, all of my movements, and even what I ate for lunch (chicken sandwich). Few days from the far past I remember so vividly.
Ugh. We were moving and donated books to a local goodwill type charity. Later we found out that they literally were sending all donated books to a paper recycler. I could understand that with some books, damaged or foxed (or dragoned) but it was an unexpected emotional blow.
I paired down my book collection recently, and while looking for a shop to take them, I was discouraged to discover how selective of the type of books they accept
>> No: atlases, catalogues, computer books, comic books, condensed books, exercise, erotica, magazines, journals, art catalogues, outdated business books, romance novels, and textbooks.
Books etc. expand to fill the space allotted to them. At some point, I decided that the (considerable) space in my house devoted to books and other media was at a peak. Since then, I've done an annual or so winnowing to keep inflow (though a lot of that has shifted to digital) and outflow approximately matched.
I could still get rid of a lot though if I wanted to.
I moved abroad about ten years ago to a non English speaking country. Got the first kindle that came out and never looked back. I have hundreds of books I take with me everywhere now.
I have hundreds of books I take with me everywhere now
This is an underexplored cultural shift I think. In the past your books and your music on LP or CD and your movies on DVD or VHS were part of the decor, usually on prominent display in the living room, the room of the house where guests were entertained. Even your games carts for your console would be in that display. Seeing what was in your host's collection was a part of getting to know them better, and of course, they might choose to curate their collection knowing it would be perused by visitors. That doesn't happen so much any more, for some people, it has never been a part of their experience. I wonder what has replaced it.
What I find troubling is that we don’t own our goods in the digital space. When you “buy” a kindle book, you don’t own that book, you own a license to read that cannot be transferred or inherited. That means that parents no longer can pass on cultural artifacts to their children and grandchildren. This cannot be a healthy evolution for humanity.
There are two types of people, broadly speaking: the ones that keep nothing always throw everything away and format their computers once a year, and the ones that hoard everything like an archive.
Although I am proudly the second type, I understand that many people are the first type. They don't really care that much about this stuff that to me feels fundamental, so they have no issue with things not really being theirs.
And in a way, they are right. While year after year I'm burdened by being the archivist of my own possessions, there are many people that just live unencumbered by such things.
The thing with owning books is that your family eventually finds your way to them if you own any. My family found my old books recently when looking for something to read - I saw it on their desks. Had to tell them "Yea, that's good, throw that one away, I wasted my time on it, don't waste yours." So that's an argument for keeping stuff, but extremely filtered.
This. Having done 4 intercontinental moves, some on tight budgets, I have donated/dumped boxes of books and now mostly read on my e-book to avoid repeating that. The only downside I have seen to this is the "display case" which is such a great way to find out when you share fringe interests with visitors.
One technical solution I have given a lot of thought is to achieve a tangible representation of books, music and photo albums as small printed cards. These cards should then be recognizable by your media devices (e-readers, audio-players,...) via QR codes or RFID tags. Think putting on a playlist by dumping a bunch of music cards on your player, etc.
I find keeping a library, while a pain in the ass to move, keeps the books and their contents more fresh in my mind. Sometimes I browse the shelves and get reminded of interesting ideas or just feel compelled to pick something up again. I don't get the same from scrolling through my Kindle library for some reason.
There are of course the ways to share your digital collection. Your games list on Steam, books on Goodreads, music on services like Spotify and last.fm. On the one hand it's less immediately visible but on the other people can see it without visiting your home. As for what has replaced it in the home, no idea.
I have a hard copy (copy #3 for me, I believe) because I, too, have trimmed down to essentials and that book is one of them. The Bantam printing, IMO, is nearly unreadable if you're over 35 years old. I have the Kindle version, too, so the hard copy is just decoration at this point.
Just my master degree finished laotze and now moved to chungtze. This copy is so bad that I am sorry it does not get Tao of programming at all. At least not tao.
*
I think at least have some story of debugging like dissect of the ox in zhungzi like
in the beginning I hack the code with hardship, strgguking all the time with upgrades and ... finally I do not see the problem and I can fix whatsoever with whatever language. There is no language just me freely hack around and the problem is solved without even the problem aware its own existence and just disappear.
Or
the Tao generate zero, zero follow by one abd with that the world is totally with us etc.
I think the license has a loophole where it forgot to include the blood signature on my computer screen, extracted with a carbon-fiber blade made from Stallman's mane.
3.3
There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?"
"An operating system," replied the programmer.
The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said.
"Not so," said the programmer, "When designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited by outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design."
The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but what about the rants on lkml?"
Great book, and "The Zen of Computer Programming" by the same author is also nice.
(Unfortunately the printed version has pages of pseudo-Chinese text that look like "A U E I A A U E E I O A E" if you can recognize a bit of the language.)
I enjoyed this book. I bought a paperback copy of this book earlier this year after reading about it on an article about books that Steve Jobs had read. The article is written by the same author: https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/12-books-steve-jobs-wante...
> Why are programmers rebellious? Because the management interferes too much.
> Why are the programmers resigning one by one? Because they are burnt out.
> Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs.