Ask HN: Does it ever feel like there is nothing left to code?
Pretty much everything has been done. Anything that I can think to build for a given language is usually already done, often many times over by very competent authors. Every time I have an idea about some kind of useful integration between devices and/or services it's always already done.
Don't get me wrong, I program simply for the joy of programming constantly - I love tinkering with things like ray tracers, or advent of code type problems, or just implementing a data structure/algorithm I think might be useful one day.
I just yearn to build something that other people can enjoy besides me. I find myself building trinkets that will never see the light of day (or, they will see the light of the day but it will just remain a public repository on my github profile with no one to notice). I've gone the non-profit route but the types of things that non-profits tend to need are usually things like basic brochure sites -- which I've done plenty of -- and I'd like to do something that taps a little deeper into my skillset.
I think I may just be stuck in a rut and I need someone to give me a different perspective to consider. Or maybe it's simply just time to give up programming as a hobby and take up a different craft hobby.
9 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 29.5 ms ] threadSorry to be stark about it, but that's the problem right there. Why do you need to be singularly noticed? Most people in general aren't. It's not a rut. It's a gazillion people who are all aiming at being at the top of the curve, and a certain smaller portion of them with the funds to make an attractive package with their dreams that will be shown forever as a YouTube suggested video.
The most productive folks out there aren't dividing their time trying to please an audience through entertainment. They're usually part of a team and take pride in the product they and their team are working on. Much less pressure than judging your value in comparison to an online celebrity.
Not even remotely and I'm not sure how you read that. I'm not really worried about "succeeding" at this point in my career as a programmer.
I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting other people to enjoy the things you've created as a hobbyist. It's a very human experience and completely normal in other hobbies. If I were into gardening and I gave my neighbor the vegetables/fruit from my harvest I don't think anyone would read that as wanting to be a celebrity or whatever you're suggesting. I'm not looking for fame. I just want to make something that someone besides myself can enjoy.
I get your point, but I still see it as trying to wring some lovin' from strangers on the Internet. That's the entire MO of sites like TikTok, so it clearly is a thing.
FWIW I don't have TikTok or any SM profile besides my Github account, and even with that I've never done much to promote anything I've built.
This is more about having a muse than it is getting popularity.
I would not worry too much about the total silence; that's the nature of globally-networked attention. (unless you prefer bell-ringing to programming, in which case change-ringing or some other hobby might indeed be best to take up)
It may have been partially, "someway" done - just that. "Everything" would be available only if you accept its current state of quality and features. Which in a way defies the whole spirit of engineering (you create tools to overcome a "current state").
In computing and engineering, almost all "new" developments are actually variations or recombinations of things that have already been done.
BUT it's not just computing! That is also true of all the other arts, crafts, literature, music, ....
There is nothing wrong with this! It can be fun and rewarding to experiment this way, and some of the variations and recombinations are sufficiently novel and/or valuable that they are taken up by others. You just have to try the experiment and see where it goes.
An interesting form of variation is to remove something, or revert to something that was almost abandoned years ago. There have been a number of interesting projects recently that do this - the uxn virtual machine, the Gemini internet protocol, even the SerenityOS operating system. All three of these projects have attracted many developers besides their original authors.
Another form of variation is scale. Pick something insanely ambitious -- that seems to require a huge corporation -- and scale it down so you can do it all by yourself. The marginalia search engine is created and operated by one guy and runs on a computer in his living room.
combination - The World Wide Web is a combination of hypertext documents and the Internet, which had both been around for a long time when Tim Berners-Lee thought of combining them.
change one thing - Almost every week, several new text editors are announced on Hacker News. Most have one unique feature that distinguishes it from all the others. It might be internal - a new data struture for storing text buffers. Or it might be in the user interface or appearance - a new method for sizing and placing windows when another buffer is opened.
change the programming language - A variation on the above. How can you do X in language Y? Can you get an improvement by using a particular language feature?
make it smaller - How small can you make a text editor, language compiler, chess playing program, ray tracer ... ?