Hey /lit/, I've been programming for about seven years now (not counting two years before that of half assed attempts to learn). I used to love it. I'd look forward to going home and working on my projects. I'd spend weekends writing scripts for Arma so my missions would be cooler. I'd whip up dumb little multiplayer game prototypes my friends and I would play with. I'd add fun things to my IRC bot.
Now, though, after working professionally as a programmer for awhile and trying to make actual polished "products" instead of just dumb pet projects in my free time, it just isn't fun anymore. It just feels like endless polish. I learned Clojure about a year ago and I had a lot of fun making a Clojurescript/NodeJS webapp until I got to a point where all my time would be spent polishing. Now I'm sitting here trying to think of something that would be fun to make and nothing seems like it wouldn't be a chore.
Anyone feel like this? How'd you push through?
>>55032027
>/lit/
Sorry, I don't really go to 4chan anymore and that's the last board I've been to.
Learn a new language. What do you know besides Clojure?
Think of a problem that exists that doesn't currently have a solution, and try to create the solution yourself. First in the languages you know, then in the new one you're learning. This is much easier said than done, but very rewarding. If you truly innovate, you could end up a millionaire.
Polish is gay soul-sucking tedium, you're right about that.
>>55032235
>Learn a new language. What do you know besides Clojure?
C, C++, Java (I'd need to brush up if I did anything with them again, though), Ruby, Python, Clojure, Javascript. I tried learning Haskell but since I learned all about functional programming in Clojure it just felt like a stricter version with worse syntax (I actually love Lisp).
I guess I would like to learn Rust. Last time I tried I gave up because I was p burnt out from my last job and it's pretty tough to crack. You need to deal with the same safety shit as in C/C++, but the compiler won't let you just not do it while you're learning. I actually might try that again.
>Think of a problem that exists that doesn't currently have a solution, and try to create the solution yourself
See, I actually have a few things I'd like to see get made. Nothing revolutionary, but like, I'd like to make a turn based browser game where you can either play in "real time" or basically play by email. I just can't motivate myself to do it because I know it'll just end up turning into polish tedium.
>Polish is gay soul-sucking tedium, you're right about that.
The worst thing is my last jobs have had very demanding employers. They really didn't want any compromises. I'd spend a week working on something before I'd have to say "The technology just isn't there yet". A good example of that was he wanted all the images in an web app to be SVGs that scaled perfectly and could have their color changed dynamically. Spent a week pounding my head against the wall on that before we just said fuck it and just had multiple PNGs for different colors.
In retrospect, I guess I should have realized there was a problem and stopped earlier.
>>55032488
Man, I just read my response. I think I might just be burnt out still. It's been a few months but I think it took me eight months to get over it last time.
>>55032027
Elixir is making me love programming all over again. Best books: Programming Elixir and Elixir in Action.
Phoenix (runs on Elixir) is great as well.
Everything runs on Erlang.
>>55032027
>Now I'm sitting here trying to think of something that would be fun to make and nothing seems like it wouldn't be a chore.
A robot girlfriend.
>>55032978
I'm looking at it right now and it seems great for a lot of the things I've made and want to make (lots of IO, lots of open websockets). I love Clojure but the JVM is too heavy for a $5 VPS. Clojurescript/Node has been okay but error handling in Node is just retarded and callbacks are shit. I mean, I could use Clojure's go blocks and channels to mitigate that but that is only really worth it in particularly complex functions.
How is the tooling for it?
>>55033094
>A robot girlfriend.
For those who can't attract a satisfactory real one.
>>55033354
Real ones are inferior to polished product.
I guess you just can't make hardware, and can't make a simulation either.
>>55033167
Tooling is top class.
Comes with a build system called mix.
A test system called ExUnit.
Package manager called Hex.
Interpetor called iex.
A Doc system.
A doc testing system (its amazing... write examples in your docs and it'll count as a test and you can see it as a doc example).
100% Emacs integration with Alchemist. I personally use SpaceMacs (emacs but with vim evil mode).
Extras:
100% compatibility with all Erlang libraries.
Macro programming.
>>55033468
Sounds perfect for me. Erlang is pretty lightweight, right? I mean, at least comparable to Node/Ruby?
I think I'll try learning it and then rewrite one of my Node apps with it. I was going to redo it in Clojure anyway, but that fucking JVM man. I was considering redoing it in Go but Go just isn't very fun to write.
>>55033540
Extremely lightweight. I have no problem running 1000+ processes to use all the cores of my computer too. Elixir and Erlang is the ultimate system for fault tolerant and scalable systems.
Shit has supervisor trees man... omg <3. I havent written a try catch block in forever. The way I write code has changed completely.
The biggest and helpful syntax change for me is pattern matching. I haven't written an if else statement in months man. MONTHS.
AT&T, Whatsapp, and many more companies use it.
>>55033787
>Shit has supervisor trees man... omg <3. I havent written a try catch block in forever.
I don't even know what "supervisor trees" are so I'm excited. Node has me missing try/catch blocks...
Programming is definitely soul crushing, but i imagine almost every job feels that way sooner or later. I like my job because I get to do some IT work, some business consulting, and some software dev.
>>55033926
http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/supervisor-and-application.html
That reminds me... Elixir comes with one of the best fucking tools I've ever seen called Observer. The article above explains it near the bottom as well.
>>55032027
graduate from programming to product development and entrepreneurship. see it as a technical challenge. 'polishing' is very normal in every field, not just programming. all quality comes from quite a boring process of refinement. so maybe you are just a bit addicted to the dopamine hit of starting new projects without any responsibility. learning new languages etc as others here suggest will just defer the question. it's a question of maturity, i.e. you'll get more enjoyment in the long run if you have control over your work and can profit from it fully, and can justify the grind of improving it
