from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is It Age, or Am I Losing Interest in Programming?

by OulaX on 2/7/23, 7:14 AM with 29 comments

• by brailsafe on 2/7/23, 8:15 AM

  It turns out that sitting in front of a screen solving mundane logic problems all day isn't exactly the most desirable thing out there. Why would anyone want to write more code when they have to do it for the bulk of their time? That stopped being compelling after my first burnout, it's only compelling if there's literally no other hobbies I could engage in.

  Note that there's a difference between programming in general, and software development as a job.

  It's like loving coffee, so you want to be a barista, but then you realize the job of a barista is actually horrible and largely has nothing to do with coffee, so you start drinking tea at home instead and look for a way out.

  The answer? Do less work, do less programming, use the time for something more worthwhile, and the interest might come back with time. Get your job done as quickly as possible, then leave the house and explore the world. Job is done if the job is done.

• by osullivj on 2/7/23, 7:43 AM

  56, coding since 79, first paid gig 83. I've had these dips periodically in my career. First in 1990! When I get bored or frustrated I tend to find it's down to mgmt. IMHO single biggest factor in job satisfaction is relationship with mgr. At various times I have fixed with internal moves, or new employer. Life is too short to suffer like this when you sell half your waking hours to earn a crust.

• by binanc on 2/7/23, 3:46 PM

  Work is boring, repetitive and soul sucking. That's why they pay you to stick around. Otherwise, everyone would be doing it for free.

  Unless you have better options, just stick it out. Eventually you'll get used to it and become the soulless robotic 50/60 year olds you see at work. Better than being homeless.

  If you think about it, humans were never meant to be living and working the way we do. No more than livestock in industrial farms. It's why we are so drugged up, distracted and unhappy.

• by senttoschool on 2/7/23, 7:35 AM

  Did you switch to full-time remote from before?

  If so, it's possible that the switch from full-time remote and full-time office work might have something to do with it. Previously, when I went home from the office, that meant my work was done for the day. There was a clear line between work and no more work. This freed my mine to work on side projects and other stuff.

  Currently, I feel like I'm always in work mode since there is no clear line between turning off work mode and do whatever I want mode. Even on the weekends.

  This lack of separation has drained me of a lot of motivation, I think.

• by inphovore on 2/7/23, 9:29 AM

  Burn out and boredom are common.

  In the context of decades (we all go through them), periods of years may not be uncommon.

  It’s not you, humans need to mix things up, change disposition, readjust, etc.

  Try micro-exercise session. For a time I would play break out sessions of some strategic warfare game (wz2100 ;) and stop while my brain is in that hyper attentive faze (useless if you wear yourself out on the game.)

  Mixing things up a bit might do. I quit my job and moved to India for a year. The first year back was the hardest.

• by kolme on 2/7/23, 11:14 AM

  It is quite normal to lose interest over time, especially if the tasks at work are not that exciting at the moment.

  - Programming at home as a hobby should never feel like a chore. If you don't feel like programming, just don't. Forcing yourself is only going to make the situation worse.

  - Maybe find another hobby. For example, pick up a music instrument. I started practising guitar daily and it does wonders for my mental health. Music, sports, gardening, something that has a "meditative" aspect to it will work. You'll save your "programming energy" for the tasks at work and will enjoy them more.

  - If you want to keep on programming on side projects but are hitting a "rut", maybe spice things up with a programming language that is completely alien to what you know. For me Clojure brought new joy a new way of looking at programming and made me fall in love with programming again.

  Hope that helps. Also keep in mind this is normal and that we all go through this several times in our careers.

• by buriburi on 2/9/23, 9:03 AM

  I'm, (more or less), in the same situation. I'm 51 and programming since I was 11 (professionally since 14yo). And I feel tired (above all my poor eyes XD). Lots of work not used or used incorrectly, duplicate work over the time... I think nothing is wrong with me/us... It is simple lack of patience over the years because the age.. Some people called it experience :D So, a mix of age, experience, lack of interest in new tech(because you see that this "new" tech is already something old with a new layer of spaghetti code of a shiny new language), makes me think about finish my career and look for another use of my time (Learn english? XD). Am I wrong? maybe.. El tiempo lo dirá. ;) cheer up!

• by sandreas on 2/7/23, 12:21 PM

  > Is anyone else passing through similar times? Is it okay? Should I be worried?

  Same here. My problem was having not enough time accomplishing all my interesting hobby project ideas and losing interest after a while of no real progress experimenting around. Another thing was the sheer overwhelming amount of hypes around software development these days (Should I learn Rust get more into TypeScript? What about Dart/Flutter? Or maybe golang? <insert the next best hype framework / language here>)

  I don't have any advice but leaving (Hobby-)Programming alone for a while and see what happens. For Job-Programming you should prevent procastination (Reddit / Slack) and instead find something that really annoys you with your product and try to fix it. This is good in two ways: You do something that is interesting and maybe your manager will like your work and promote you.

• by bheadmaster on 2/7/23, 9:05 AM

  My job has become tedious in the last half a year or so, too.

  I think it's a natural reaction to an unsatisfying environment, combined with personal fatigue. There are many particular elements that an "unsatisfying environment" may consist of, but ultimately it's always on a spectrum.

  > Should I be worried?

  Depends. Does it affect your personal well-being? Do you feel like shit all the time? Has this been going on for a long time? If so, it might be worthwhile to seek a more pleasant place of employment. (I'd take my own advice, but I'm extremely socially avoidant)

  I find that creative activities help a lot. Even if they feel that they won't - whenever I force myself to create something (in my case, music), I feel much more alive afterwards. Even if only for a short time.

• by bsaul on 2/7/23, 8:12 AM

  Sometimes problems in your personnal life affect your work. Make sure there isn't something that bothers you in that space.

  Also, when was the last time you had a 1 week holidays ? US companies grant very very few holidays, it's not for everyone.

• by sogos on 2/7/23, 8:16 AM

  Maybe consider side-stepping career-wise? Transferring your knowledge into a PM/Engineering Manager/Sales Engineering/Trainer/Consultant kind position where you use the same tech, but have a different work rhythm/pov. I am currently an EM, but oscillate between IC and management since my 25 years career. Now having done several management positions the past 5 years, I see myself after being interested in something new (Rust) immersed in private projects and wishing to do coding again full time.

  You are not the same you were years ago, interest change.

• by holler on 2/7/23, 7:35 AM

  Sounds like you need to find a renewed sense of motivation and optimism. That's something only you can find and it comes from within.

  I'd do some soul searching on what makes you happy, or what types of projects, hobbies, scenarios, products, companies, change of scenery, etc would bring some type of new excitement into your life.

  Sounds like you are bored at the core, and no that is not uncommon imo. I've experienced it myself and often I need to take a break of some form, completely disconnecting from work for awhile.

• by ezedv on 2/8/23, 5:56 PM

  Have you thought about learning new technologies? Maybe if you vary your tech stack, you would feel more motivated :)

  I recommend this article, if you're interested in Blockchain: https://www.ratherlabs.com/post/the-roadmap-to-become-a-bloc...

  Let me know if it was useful for you! Good luck with everything!

• by Agingcoder on 2/7/23, 2:21 PM

  Yes, this happens to me from time to time. Usually it means I need a new project, with different people.

  I then usually look for a new project in my company, or look at parts from my current project I've never looked at, and which will help me meet new people (say networks, databases, business, etc), and learn things, which will in turn allow me to branch into something new.

  You shouldn't worry, it will come back.

• by Raminj95 on 2/7/23, 3:22 PM

  If you dont like your job/tasks that you do daily its pretty obvious to me that you will start not liking that activity. Start programming recreationally, create something you want, something cool and fun to you. Change your env, start using vim just switch it up to keep it fun. That has worked for me at least.

• by theGeatZhopa on 2/7/23, 7:26 AM

  That's your job that makes you unhappy. You have to many spare time and it might become boring through out the day.

  I don't like my job either, bit because of tooo much of work. But it's a different "don't like" - I don't have time to think about:)

  You need bigger tasks to rule boredom out

• by GianFabien on 2/7/23, 7:24 AM

  Yours is an unusual situation, most people complain about having too much work and not enough time to do it properly and maintain some semblance of life/work balance.

  Why not look for a job that challenges you more and preferably pays even better?

• by bpanon on 2/7/23, 2:20 PM

  Life is too short to not do what you love.

• by ManlyBread on 2/7/23, 11:45 AM

  For me it's simply the fact that learning and mastering a certain part of the discipline raises the bar for what is considered interesting and impressive.

  When I was learning programming it was exciting to see my program finally compile and run without errors. Now it's nothing special - I solved that "problem" a while ago and now having my program compile and run is just business as usual. And business as usual is usually boring.

  Same with databases. At first it was interesting and exciting to poke around in SQL and get it to output the data the way I want it to be presented. Now? Just another tool where I write the same queries I've written thousands of times already. Boring.

  Eventually I've lost interest in programming outside work as well. I can't remember the last time I've picked up a tutorial for something or decided to learn a new tool. If I do that I lose interest in half an hour tops. It just feels like more work on top of the 40 hours I do every week.

  But sometimes there are exceptions. Sometimes I find out that I'm struggling with some weird problem and it irks me so much that I've decide to do something about it. And doing something about it usually means I write some kind of a program.

  In the past few years I've done the following:

  - fixed two bugs in two different Unity games using a decompiler (dnSpyEx)

  - hacked several other Unity/Gamemaker games in the same way to remove intro logos or to deal with unbalanced gameplay elements (like the developers expecting me to grind for hours to buy something in-game or not putting save points after a tough boss)

  - hacked together a solution to traverse my archive of various compressed files in order to re-compress them to a format that is more storage efficient (7z to zpaq)

  - wrote a script to scrape a page that was shutting down

  - wrote a script to upload what I've scraped to an another website

  Some people do more in a week than what I did these past few years.

  None of these were particularly grand projects and the code I've written is shoddy and not worth showing to other people.

  And yet each one of them made my life somehow a little bit better. It all made me realize that I like to solve actual problems instead of trying to make up a problem and then pretending I need to solve it. And when I was solving these problems I could get lost in them for hours and enjoy the process of resolving them, even though in the end I wasn't doing anything special.

  Perhaps something similar applies to you as well? Perhaps you feel like you're not motivated to work on a side project because deep down there's nothing in this project that is worth caring about? Maybe all you really need is to think about what do you actually want instead of what you think needs to be done and then act on it?