I’ll go first…after 10 years of speculating in the market (read: gambling in high risk assets) I realized I shouldn’t ever touch a brokerage account in my lifetime. A monkey would have made better choices than I did. Greed has altered the course of life many times over. I am at an age where I may recover from my actions over the decades, but it has taken its toll. I am frugal and have a good head on me, but having such impulsivity in financial instruments was not how I envisioned my adulthood. Its a bitter pill to swallow, since money is livelihood of my family, but I need to “invest” all I have into relationships, meaningful moments, and fulfilling hobbies.
It’s easy to do when we’re all surrounded constantly by the paradox of money meaning nothing at all, but also the only material thing that dictates the action and activity of everything past and future
Biggest Pill I’ve had to swallow is that no matter much I love programming and will continue my computer hobbies for life. I will never make a profession out of it. I’m slowly coping with the fact that all my work will ultimately influence very nearly nothing at all…
I had the opposite, I hated coding and never wanted to do it as a job… But here I am, 9-5 coding. 😅
I did realise at some point that it was actually Java that I hated, not programming. I do, however now work with Kotlin.
Why do you say that? Is it by choice or do you not see how you could make it a career?
What kind of impact were you hoping for? I mean lots of jobs have little “influence” - I would actually say almost all jobs. But that doesn’t mean we are not all part of collective progress.
Could certainly be argued as a choice ultimately. I didn’t quite finish my BS in CS, I’m entering my 30s with a wife that depends on me not leaving my decent and steady warehouse mgmt job atm. I’ve tried a couple of times–last time I was building a great portfolio maintaining a hobbyist arch distro, but I just never got past the interview stages. My network is too small, and the job market seems to be a dumpster fire with no upturn in sight.
I know these are excuses and ultimately it is a choice that I shouldn’t give up on my dreams the way I am, but I wanted to answer your question as honestly as possible for some reason. As far as impact, it’s basically been a lifelong dream of mine to just make software that helps improve the quality of life of as many sentient beings as I possibly can. I know it’s immature and overly idealist, but I can’t shake it
Open source projects and/or contributions can be a good way in.
I didn’t know anything about coding when I decided to fix a small bug in my KDE system that was bugging me… I poked around, asked some questions, figured it out bit by bit… which led to contributing to KDE more, and now I am a paid KDE developer. I now literally get paid to do something I am passionate about, working on a project that I feel makes a very real impact on the world.
I highly recommend open source to help break into the field. Anyone willing to learn and put some effort in can do it, no previous experience needed. :)
I don’t think it’s immature - I wish more people had that kind of motivation.
But you say you’re entering your 30s. I’d just like to remind you how long time you actually still have. I studied computer science myself and I had multiple friends at the university in their 40s. People do switch up their careers if they want it enough. It is possible.
These are the comments that do me in. Time to repolish the resume and my most practical projects. I can’t believe I’m getting serious about this again, but I do believe in my drive, determination, and earnest passion to be the change I want to see in the software world. I know it’s pointless, and I will almost certainly fail quite miserably, but I also know I have to go down swinging or my soul will rot from the regrets. I just have to fail better–I have to do it despite the pointlessness.
There is nothing pointless about following your passions - in fact I’d say that is the only point of life. It’s the opposite of pointless.
Maybe you need to reframe it as not failure, but progress. See how you get better and closer, not how you didn’t reach the goal. It’s about the journey.
On the other hand I have found a lot of people who turn the hobby they love into a business and it ruins the joy they found in their hobby.
That is certainly a bright side of the matter isn’t it. Maybe keeping the joy alive is more critical than the bread?
I’m not here to influence things. I was in the thick of it for a bit, but I’m here now.
I love coding. I get to do it for money. It allows me a nice little apartment in a nice environment and with my wife chipping in her half we’re a little insulated from financial strife. A little.
That’s it. I code, I eat food and live with a beautiful girl who seems to care for me, and we occasionally get to go see family or a strange new place. I’m flying as close to the sun as I dare.
Find peace in your existence and enjoy what you’re doing, whether programming is the bread or it’s the butter. It’s all a means to an end of doing something you love for what little time we have here.
I feel you. I think about how intangible code is and how quickly that will fade from existence… It’s heavy, to say the least. And yet the challenge ever calls me to solve a problem with ones and zeroes.
I built a business with my code, and it helps save/improve hundreds of thousands of lives around the world. I don’t want to doxx myself so won’t give any further info.
Just because it’s intangible, your code can still potentially have a huge amount of value.
I agree. The impact can be real, and that’s the case for my coding job too, maybe to a lesser extent than yours. A lot of days I think I have my dream job. But still, digital data isn’t like a Roman ruin or something. It will be gone in 1000 years. Just wild to think about, and sometimes I feel like that fact matters.