I have been a software engineer all my working life, and I absolutely despise woodworking or anything that smacks of DIY. I find them unbelievably stressful and frustrating partly because I can see how I want things to be, they never work out nearly that good and I can never fix them.
Woodworking is rooted in reality. Angles are not perfect, measures are not perfect. In coding, everything is perfect. That I don't like the first and like the second.
This is probably why I've spent most of my career in embedded systems. It's the juncture of "this code will always execute the same way over the next 100,000 cycles" versus "the actuator controlled by that code will execute the same way for the first 10,000 cycles then start to go haywire as the bearings wear and the salt water starts corroding the slides leading to a bug that only shows up an hour after high tide."
that's the struggle of learning any new skill, though. at first you're going to suck, and you're gonna know you suck, but you have to keep going to stop sucking eventually. same with programming.
With programming you have source control and some form of an undo command. You also have a compiler and (if you can be bothered writing them) tests.
If you need another tool or another component you can just search for it on the internet and if it's available you can have it in seconds. No trips to a shop that may or may not have what you need, or queueing, or explaining what you need to a shop assistant who couldn't really give a shit, or being upsold on some other thing that you don't really need or understand, etc.
Also, crucially for me personally, there's no mess that needs to be tidied away before the rest of the family come find you. There's no storage area needed for half-finished crap, odds and ends you can't decide if you need in future, potentially dangerous power tools, that kind of thing.
Building software is like taking all the fun parts of DIY and leaving all the boring / dangerous / physically taxing parts behind, and you can pretty much do it wherever you have a power supply and internet connection. That's why I first loved it and why I continue to do it today.
> With programming you have source control and some form of an undo command. You also have a compiler and (if you can be bothered writing them) tests.
There is always an undo, just get another board.
> Building software is like taking all the fun parts of DIY and leaving all the boring / dangerous / physically taxing parts behind, and you can pretty much do it wherever you have a power supply and internet connection. That's why I first loved it and why I continue to do it today.
I have a different point of view. The software you build is ephemeral. You can't show it to someone. The architecture and the beautify of it's interplay is hidden and it's art is only available to you. I can show you my dovetail and let you feel how smooth the finish is. It's real. You can explorer it with your senses.
I also think a lot more people than just devs like woodworking. Some time ago, I spoke to a GP (family doctor) who was going to take woodworking classes because of COVID-fatigue. Perhaps there's a baseline that the author needs to take into account.
I would consider knowing when things are 'good enough' is a core skill in software engineering too. There's always time to take another swing at it later. Nothings perfect
Agreed, and I'm more than fine with that in software. My attempts at woodworking/DIY are definitely not "good enough" by any objective standards.
Bookcase that fell off a wall shattering a glass desk and filling an entire room with books and papers laced with splinters? Yup. That was me.
Shed with gaps inbetween the walls large enough you can see in from the outsides? Also me.
School woodworking project to make an engraving that was so terrible it transmuted into an ashtray even though none of my family smoke? You got it. Me.
Ikea bed assembly where I got so frustrated that my friends banned me from helping assemble it and did it for me even though it was my bed? Err I'm not proud of it, but it did happen.
I could go on, but in any case. I don't like woodworking and I have plenty of good reasons not to. Perfectionism is not the problem.
I try to evolve satisfaction at my own jobs badly done. I also admire anyone that has done something, even when they fail.
There are uncountable skills to learn in one lifetime: there can be joy in accepting that one will always be crappy at most crafts. Celebrate tiny improvements.
I think we all have an IQ of 60 in different areas of our lives: being kind to our low IQ selves and encourage the best out of our poor weird misfired brains, like we would any child. Encourage the disabled you, usually nobody else will help much, or worse, lots of people will meanly cut you down. Be kind to yourself, mostly say positive things and be constructive.
> Bookcase that fell off a wall shattering a glass desk and filling an entire room with books and papers laced with splinters? Yup. That was me.
This one sounds as the worst "failure", but in general, hanging a book case off the wall is hard even for experienced professionals: books are notoriously heavy, and walls are of vastly different constructions, so sometimes, hanging it up is simply... impossible (eg. with a drywall if you can't find the drywall frame behind, or if that is too weak).
When I did remodelling of my place, I've planned for steel support behind wherever I wanted to hang heavy items (like a double vanity sink unit [people also lean on them], book cases, TV with a wooden panel behind it and similar). And you need to use special screws for different wall types and load (concrete anchors, wall/rawl plugs, toggle bolts, drywall anchor plugs... — though my English names might be off for these :).
So in short, don't hold this one much against yourself: it's sometimes hard even for seasoned pros, let alone hobbyists. I am just a seasoned hobbyist that's a sucker for hanging items (or actually, having clear floor to clean).
Anyway, the thing that attracts me to woodworking (and previously, chipboard cabinet construction) is that you get to make your own ideas: just like with software. But building stuff is not limited to software development or woodworking, and while there are plenty of software engineers enjoying woodworking, there are other ways to enjoy building your own stuff, and some might even enjoy not building anything after they've been doing it for 8+ hours a day.
>Shed with gaps inbetween the walls large enough you can see in from the outsides?
if it makes you feel any better, there's advantages to that too. If the wind can get through it, it's unlikely that moisture will be trapped inside. as long as the gaps aren't so wide that it's raining into the shed, anyway.
I have been a software engineer all my working life, and I absolutely despise woodworking or anything that smacks of DIY. I find them unbelievably stressful and frustrating partly because I can see how I want things to be, they never work out nearly that good and I can never fix them.