!rant

It's a non-working holiday at the office so I'm at home doing nothing. I asked my boyfriend what to do for the whole day then he said "Spend your day to something you really enjoy".

Ah yes!

So I'm building a new project. What an exciting day!

Im getting a bit tired of programming.

I have been struggling for years regarding programming. I did have some moments of perceived success, but most of the time it has been depressing.

I’m not sure if I dislike programming. But there are some aspects of it that make me feel not as passionate about it.

First of, programs are invisible. No one sees your program or you (assuming we’re talking about a non artistic dev job).

People can’t see lines of code executing, but even if they did it would be gibberish to them.

Users can only become aware of bad software and that kind of breaks my heart a bit.

You could write fast, stable, secure, easy to read, easy to update software. People won’t notice. Hell, even your boss/coworkers might not notice.

In fact, sometimes you try to do the good thing, you try to become a better dev, you try to write tests first, you try to i18n, and what do you get? “Uhh, that’s taking too much time and I don’t see the benefit”.

I know some people will say that people noticing bad service happens on every job.

But programming is the ultimate isolation job. No client has ever told me “hey that code you wrote was pretty good”. They can’t even read code.

I don’t know the users, the users don’t know me, and the users can only judge my program by the result, they can only judge the visual interface.

Let’s say you write a cool project at github. The code is great. Guess what, every language’s ecosystem out there is saturated. Everything is already written. GitHub is saturated. Your best project ends up being a just for yourself enjoyment.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy code for yourself. That’s how I bet most prolific coders start. I’ve been doing that for many years now. But at some point you want to be part of something with humans.

Imagine I’m stranded on an island with nothing no humans, just food, water and a computer. Would I write code just for myself, just for fun? I think I would off myself 3 months in.

Maybe I should do develop a more social talent...

Tldr; make sure what you study is relevant to the field and you enjoy it otherwise don't waste your time.

BTW: devrant is awesome it gets me through the day.

So I am almost 3/4ths through a master's in cs and I am contemplating why I went to school in the first place/dropping out.

My program is basically an extension of the bs I got from the same school meaning we learn very general cs topics. There is only one ai class for example.

I had a junior developer position before I even got my bs so now that I am this far along and looking at job openings I'm wondering what why and how my school is able to get away with teaching us this shit.

After all my schooling I learnt more on my own and through Google. I have little to show for my school work other than a degree that says I did a bunch of busy work. And the specific things that I did learn I will never ever remember. Seriously. Who here knows what a MIB and OID are and have actually used them?

I wish I tried harder to get into a school like Berkeley but just looking at their applications is depressing. I always had issues with school and they expect my to have the grades, extra curriculars and other shit. I'll build you a robot or make you a website but I'm not doing that nonsense.

And then there's Google and apple and all these big tech companies expecting me to have written full Enterprise software and know every single algorithm and programming language because everyone uses something different. Sure I wish I had experience in all 50 languages that are popular right now but I don't. And I'm not gonna learn it from school that's for damn sure.

Who here actually went to a good school and can say it helped them in the real world? How many employers actually care about school over actual experience?

Who knows how to burn a school down and get away with it? Or at least make teachers with Phds stop reading off slides all lecture. I know how to fucking read for fucks sake. Not too mention they use shitty software made in 2003 that's no longer supported. And I could go on about the teacher last quarter who graded the midterm on final day while he flirted with the 3 girls in class. And I could go on and on and on but I feel like I need to start being productive so I don't waste away.

Just so done.

Not exactly a dev related rant.

Do you ever get the feeling when you're not working, like today, that you're kinda wasting time (can't find a better way to describe)? I usually work on Sunday at home, running behind insane deadlines, trying to anticipate tasks. Today was different, I woke up to a fresh VS 2017 install, updated my .net core api to 2.0, learnt how to deploy to Azure, made a CI/CD pipeline and then spend some fun time with my 5 month baby. Argued with him when Azure didn't let me make a new subscription. Sat on the sidewalk with him doing absolutely nothing for a solid half hour, only looking the way he admired everything around him and stuff. Took the trash out, did the dishes, helped with the laundry. But yet I feel like tomorrow gonna be a rough day, where everything will blow up 'cause I didn't did anything work related.

I'm starting to think I lost the taste of enjoying myself, enjoying the people around me, my family, parents, friends. I've been spending too much time on autopilot. Wake up, smoke, work, eat, work, smoke, sleep. Repeat.

I do enjoy my job, a little less when it's not dev related, but I do anyway. We are a small company with big contracts and tight deadlines. Always struggling to give our best and advance further, but I can see I'm loosing something while giving 120% of attention to my job.

Anyway, just wanted to get this thing out of my chest. Thank you if you read this far.

I hate those morons who do QA by simply clicking around. You are a disgrace to people like me who like to code and still enjoy doing testing.
Get a life you fuckers. You are the sole reason why many people in industry thinks that QA is something anybody can do.

Yes, I agree you can test the application, but in no way you could ensure the quality of the product.

ok, fuck people. i mean the people who talk about things that are a big deal. you don't need to take a course in html/css to build a website, you need documentation.

people act like programming languages are a whole separate literacy. they're not. it is not a big deal, nor an accomplishment of any significance, to learn any language to a basic extent. variables, control flow, functions and scope should not be considered challenging topics, and people should stop bragging about them. i'm pretty sure this is because programming is new. as people, i think when something is new we tend to think of it as more complex and harder to understand. basic programming is not that.

ok that was a tangent from my real point. college is a scam. anyone can learn anything from books and the internet. any time you want to learn about something, go to google, and search "${my topic} site:*.github.io" and you'll have a page about that topic written by someone who is knowledgeable and passionate of the topic. colleges don't teach people how to think like these books/websites do. and i'm fucking sick of people who'd rather see a degree then a portfolio. fuck them shits bro. i can distinct my smart friends because my smart friends speak logically and enjoy becoming smarter. i would take the kid who watches aerodynamics videos on youtube and then built a plane over a kid who studied and got a five on his ap physics exam. watching then doing is better learning than watching and repeating. after all, creativity is not at all measured in our grades, and i'd like to argue that sometimes intelligence isn't even measured. i mean, people can say they're good at math, but the kids who talk about fibinnoci numbers and why there can never be two primes more than 7 (i if i remember properly) integers apart or the ones who prove cryptographic algorithms. i guess what i'm trying to say is the dumb kids aren't dumb and the smart kids aren't smart (well not that) but kids who are passionate and just do something instead of waiting for their degree to do the same thing are the best and brightest. i forgot what i was talking about. sorry it is almost 2 am and i am intoxicated , and i don't believe i got my point across very well either.

For sure you know people who ask you like "hey, you do something with computer, right? I have a problem with my (insert random device here)."
Of course I am looking forward doing so! I was playing with jboss and oracle all the day and like to do more computer stuff! Yes, today, I know it is important because your mom can't play candy crush right now...
No! Stop! After fixing PCs for nearly free in my spare time, I am blocking all these questions now and focus on doing things i like in my spare time. Are you still fixing other people's stuff for free? Stop it. Enjoy life!

I am fucking out of shape. I hate it. I also dislike gyms and exercising doing some repetitive boring set of things. I feel like exercise should be a functional thing. My mind has issues so I end up not exercising. I walk every day 2 to 3 times a day at work. So I am getting some exercise, but not enough. I also like to play games. I saw a reference to a "Skyrim workout". I thought, hey I should look into that. So I found a couple of workouts tied to game mechanics. I am going to start with the simpler one until I see how this will "work out"... If this is successful I think I will create a mod that people can customize their workouts. Less fatty gamers unite!

I have also changed my diet to mostly non carbs. I allow some carbs, but not most. I feel better in general. I just need to actually move more. Have found I don't really get hungry anymore, or not as much.

Anyway, here is the simpler workout I found:

How do I get through tough dev days ?

If by tough day we mean a day where I'm really not feeling it or the like, I don't.
I let it pass by me though music or doing something I enjoy doing, or something random but interesting.

If we mean that the task at hand during that day is tough, then there's no escaping it unless you want to risk losing your job, and I can't afford losing my job. So I ask for help, try to do it one little thing at a time. little progress is better than no progress.

Never got one as is, but went so close to it than I could smell the smell of death out if it.

Short story: it's due to my hate of Drupal 8, but I just don't know if I was badly introduced to it through a car wreck of a project or if I simply just hate it and it's insanly hard way to do simple stuff.

In November I went to the point where development was no longer a pleasure, and I was doing lots and lots of small mistakes that almost got my ass fired (made a rant about it). Nothing was enjoyable, I stop going to the gym, ate badly, saw no one excepted my roommate...

The day they switched me to write test scenarios with Behat, the sun started to shine again. Now that I'm back on Drupal knowing all this, I know that I'll have to leave the company once I have my diploma, because there's no point to stay in a place doing something you don't enjoy while you get tons of job proposals on LinkedIn

To all the people who are deep down in it: stay strong, save your ass as soon as possible and find something else, but keep some time to heal.

So IV been spending quite a lot of time recently chasing my new career as a developer. But today I took a step back from everything and realised something quite important. A job title doesn't make you a developer. If you enjoy coding and have a genuine passion for it then you are already a developer. Just keep doing what you enjoy the most and fuck everyone else.

It has to be working from home without any schedule and being paid ridicously more than your country's average salary, doing something you enjoy. Oh, and I don't even need a degree. :)

Hello my fellow DevRanters! 😁 A question for those of you who like to learn new stuff constantly, what are your tricks or tips you use to learn more? and enjoy the overall experience (do you write notes, read posts, etc) my reason to ask this is that oftentimes I forget everything I learned after 5 minutes, so maybe I'm doing something wrong

When you start a new game and you can't stop your dev brain and just enjoy the damn game and play it as it is!!!!

Grabbed this baby up the minute i had a chance to. Being the dev that i am, already thinking of doing something to optimize my calendar confidant(social links)-wise.

I mean i have the list of confidanfs, the date they start and the days they are available. All i need is a tool that can take all these in, apply some scheduling algorithm, and churn out a calendar!!!

I try to avoid comparing myself to others. It's easier said than done, but nothing good ever comes of it. Either I'm just telling myself how much smarter I am than somebody (just tearing them down in my mind, not a healthy attitude), or I'm feeling insecure about my own shortcomings (imposter syndrome).

If someone is paying you to do something you're obviously doing it well enough. And even if you aren't currently being paid, as long as you are working on something you enjoy and bettering yourself every day, you're going to be fine.

!dev
So the day started at 12am(lol) when I woke up, because the day usually starts when you wake up, except that for me it started when I didn't go to sleep. No problem, worked on web project, I also do some sysadmin stuff, I love these two fields and I learn so much by just doing it so it is a fucking pain to go to school where I can only sleep coz the shit they teach I already know or not relevant/makes no sense to me and my life. Drains the fcking life out of me.

Question:
Is college the same or it is possible to enjoy because you can focus on what you love in your full time?
I consider myself a self-taught(coz I just sit at my computer and use the internet lolz, no one has helped me in my profession before, mainly coz I hate asking for help) and I see a lot that degree is not worth it, go for a job...
One thing I know is that I'll definitely try to find any job as soon as I get the fuck out of here, I'm 17 and I feel I'm already late (yeah, that's stupid).

I wanted to ask you guys, maybe someone is/was in the same situation or something but I'm just thinking loudly here :D

Right now I'm at a theatre with my class, I am so lonely here I have a whole free row for myself, at least I'm less anxious now. Such bullshit, I could be at home learning and developing.