Interesting reading this thread. I learned to code in 78 and have been doing this as a pro for nearly 40 years. I'm really sorry you're burning out mate.
Me? I feel completely the opposite. So many new things to learn. So many new people to work with. So many interesting problems to solve that I would never have thought about. Computers and software still fill me with wonder and awe despite me never having touched an assembler in 30 years. Or perhaps it's because I took a decision decades ago that I hated ui work. So much effort for so little reward. I don't know. But I feel more charged these days than I ever was when I was doing grunt programming, scouring books and obscure documents to solve problems. Also I'm sure the new ai tools we're getting are making a massive positive difference to me feeling this way. I hope the change will bring the joy of making things back to you Greg. All over YouTube, I follow creators who've moved on from software to making things out of real materials. Perhaps that's where we all go one day. Preet On Mon, 7 Oct 2024, 21:18 Scott via ozdotnet, <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> wrote: > Here me out .. I have this new idea .. we take a declarative language like > xml and mix it inline with an ecma style language .. to build ui > > Nobody’s done this before … righ … > > Greg +1 on your points sadly the industry often ignores the past to make > the new all over again with less > > If I knew what I now know today I would have worked 100x harder on wpf and > Silverlight vision > > Today I work mostly with c++ and its full circle for me > > > --- > Regards, > Scott Barnes > > > > On Mon, 7 Oct 2024 at 11:10 AM, Greg Keogh via ozdotnet < > ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> wrote: > >> Hello everyone, it's not Friday, but I have an announcement and tale that >> might interest you. >> >> I’m easing into retirement. >> >> Companies I’ve been working for are being sold, retired or are no longer >> developing new software. Running out of legacy work would drive a regular >> dev to seek new work, but in my case, I declined to create a LinkedIn page, >> or send out feelers through contacts for new work, because… I’m burnt out. >> >> Why? >> >> I learned to code in 1975 and became an official programmer in 1981. I >> wrote FORTRAN, ALGOL, COBOL, assemblers and various JCLs and scripting >> languages on Honeywell, FACOM and IBM mainframes. Things were simpler back >> then of course because you moved inside the ecosystem of a particular >> manufacturer and had high-level support and voluminous and accurate >> documentation. If you wanted to solve a problem or do something edgy, then >> an answer was nearby. It was a different simpler world, but … everything >> worked. >> >> Now, well into the 21st century of IT, everything doesn’t work. My wife >> often hears me shout from the other end of the house “Everything f***ing >> doesn’t work”. I also only semi-jokingly say I’ll have these words carved >> into my gravestone: “Everything f***ing doesn’t work all the f***ing time”. >> >> Overall, what has burnt me out is *complexity *and *instability*. I’ll >> break those topics down a bit. >> >> Everything in modern IT is *complicated *and *fragile*. Every new >> toolkit, platform, pattern, library, package, upgrade, etc is unlikely to >> install and work first time. I seem to spend more time getting things >> working and updated than I do actually writing software. In a typical >> working month I might have to juggle Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, macOS, >> Google, Amazon, Azure, .NET, Python, PowerShell and C++, and they all have >> different styles and cultures. Software engineering has fractured into so >> many overlapping pieces that I’m tired of trying to maintain competence in >> them all. >> >> That leads naturally to the problem of *dependencies*. Just having so >> many moving parts with so many different versions available produces >> dependencies more complex than abstract algebra. How many times have you >> hit some kind of compile or runtime version conflict and spent hours trying >> to dig your way out of it? (A special salute to Mr Newtonsoft there!) Or >> you install A, but it needs B, which needs C, and so on. >> >> I often hit incomprehensible blocker *problems *for which web searches >> produce absurd and conflicting suggestions which don’t work anyway. All I >> can do is futz around and change things randomly until things work again. I >> don’t know what went wrong and I don’t know what went right. >> >> *The Web* -- Browsers, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, the HTTP protocol, JSON >> and REST can all burn for eternity in fusing hellfire. About ten years ago >> I told my customers I refused to write any more web UI apps. However, I was >> forced to do so a few times and I’m still scarred by the horror. It’s just >> over 30 years since the web became public and we’re still attempting to >> render serious business apps using dumb HTML. HTML5 is the joke of the >> century (so far). I still lament the loss of Silverlight. >> >> *Git *-- Someone is lucky I don’t own a gun. >> >> *Fads *-- An exercise for the reader: name all the platforms, kits, >> patterns and frameworks that you know were once the coolest thing and now >> might only be found in history articles. An advanced exercise is to >> speculate on which currently cool things will be gone soon. >> >> Finally, here is a list of typical things that give me the shits, just as >> they pop out of my head. >> >> >> - Attempting to compile projects that have been idle for a year or >> more will usually fail due to changed dependencies or deprecations and it >> can take hours to get them going again. >> - I develop and test something with great care, then deploy it and it >> crashes. This is part of the general “it works on my machine” disease. >> - I can stop successful work on Friday night, then resume on Monday >> morning and everything utterly fails. >> - My USB microscope and music recording both stopped working >> recently, and it took me a week to discover that it was a block by Windows >> 11 app security (I thought it was a hardware or incompatibility problem >> due >> to lack of clear error messages). >> - Security! Walls, barriers and hurdles of security everywhere to >> crash through. Yes, I know we need security everywhere to stop the black >> hats, but it’s also stopping developers. Lord knows how many times I’ve >> hit >> run or debug on my own PC and I get “Access denied” and hours of research >> will be required. I’m also fed-up with ceaseless 2FA requests via email or >> SMS. >> - Everything about mobile devices. The ludicrous variety of devices >> and brands makes app development a nightmare. Then you must struggle >> through the variety of labyrinthine publishing processes. >> - My final entry is simply the tiny “thousand cuts” that torture you >> during development: version mismatches, inconsistent behaviour, strange >> errors, editor quirks, missing files, etc. All the little personal >> problems >> that slip between the cracks of bigger issues I’ve previously mentioned. >> Your mileage may vary. >> >> >> In summary, being a software engineer is now so exhausting that after 40+ >> years of a generally enjoyable career immersed in programming and computer >> science I’ve reached a point I never thought would arrive… I’m burnt out. >> Even working on my hobby projects has become a burden because they suffer >> from many of the impediments previously mentioned. >> >> I still plan to attend some upcoming conventions and Meetups, and I’ll be >> watching the forum, but my posts will diminish because I’m probably out >> trying to prevent the garden and house from disintegrating back into the >> earth from whence they came. >> >> >> *Greg Keogh* >> -- >> ozdotnet mailing list >> To manage your subscription, access archives: >> https://codify.mailman3.com/ > > -- > ozdotnet mailing list > To manage your subscription, access archives: https://codify.mailman3.com/
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