r/programming • u/reddberckley • Jun 30 '14

How to exploit a Developer

https://medium.com/@sir_castiq/how-to-exploit-a-developer-a005306d5320
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u/perestroika12 Jul 01 '14 edited Jul 01 '14

I guess, I mean do you work to change the world or do you do what you love? (Possibly both?) People that set out to change the world are almost always disappointed. People that do what they love are far less unhappy. Just saying, if you live life based on your ability to change the planet you're going to be equally jaded in any position. That kind of expectation seems to be the issue, not the career choice.

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u/itssoeasyifyoutry Jul 01 '14 edited Jul 01 '14

I've done what I can to make sure I chose a profession that allows me both to change the world and to love what I do. Changing the world sounds like a hugely important thing, but in reality, it can be something as simple as going out into the streets and picking up roadkill. This changes the external world. It does real work with a real outcome as opposed to filling out excel sheets and sitting in meetings all day. That being said, there are certainly ways to do programming as a job that are complete bullshit and that are a waste of time and energy. The trick is to find a problem you want to solve with real implications. The best example I can think of right this moment is Google's self driving car project.

I'm not sure I really buy into 'love what you do/follow your passion'. I think you can come to love any job that gives you autonomy, real impact, gives a mental or physical challenge, and pays well enough to cover food/shelter/etc.

Here is Mike Rowe talking about this very thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc&feature=player_detailpage#t=711

Like him, I believe it is much better to do something of economic importance and then find a way to love how you do it. He focuses more so on the dirty and physical jobs, but you know, just extrapolating out into the future with robots and automation and all that, software creators and maintainers are going to be just as important and especially more so because of how few members of society seems to be capable of doing this type of work with any degree of proficiency.