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Ask HN: How do I get over my “programmer envy”?

2 points by puranjay ↗ HN
I run a fairly successful digital marketing business that's growing fast and gives me considerable financial freedom.

I'm good at what I do and I enjoy my work.

However, every time I read come to this site (which is every day), I feel a very strong urge to give it all up and learn how to code.

I feel jealous of programmers, at their ability to create things and solve technical problems.

I played around a lot with code when I was younger. I built my first site when I was 13 and had a good handle on Javascript back when jQuery was still a pipe dream.

Somewhere along the way, I developed other interests (music, then writing) and ended up majoring in the humanities.

Perhaps it is my liberal arts background, but I feel a constant sense of inadequacy about my intellectual achievements every time I read a technical article. I feel like I haven't cracked a hard problem, and that bothers me.

So I ask: how do I get over this feeling? I know it's a very subjective question, but I'm hoping someone from HN can shed some light.

Should I just jump in and learn how to code, knowing that it will be years before I can learn enough to solve some real problems?

Or should I give up and focus on what I do best - marketing?

Apologies if this question is unsettling/offensive/irrelevant or just plain dumb.

4 comments

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lsiunsuex
I'm a programmer and I feel jealous of people that can design. I wish I could do both (so I can take more money from freelance) - but I don't have an eye for that. I don't care if a link is light blue or dark blue, or if the composition of a photo looks good or not.

As a programmer, I do what the design tells me to do; that's what I promise my clients, and thats what I deliver. Nothing less or more is ever expected.

Do what you do and do it well. You can make a lot of money and be happy at anything, so long as you do it well.

Arelius
> Perhaps it is my liberal arts background, but I feel a constant sense of inadequacy about my intellectual achievements every time I read a technical article. I feel like I haven't cracked a hard problem, and that bothers me.

I fell that won't go away once you learn how to program. Likelihood is you're envy will just switch from being envious of all programmers, to being envious of programmers who "actually solve hard problems" And that bar will keep moving with your skill level.

Now, on the other hand, in my opinion everything important becomes a difficult marketing problem at some point. So realizing the contribution of what you do, may help some.

BinaryIdiot
Sounds like you have a mostly unexplored passion in programming. So why not do it on the side? Some nights or weekends just read up on whatever language or platform interests you and have a go at it. After a few months when you get a handle on things decide if it's something you REALLY want to do or not.

If it's something you want to do then just go for it. Figure out a way to either stay in your business or sell it. Life isn't very long, if you can chase your passion you should do it in my opinion. Just make sure it's your passion first :)

Also don't worry about the hard problems; it's hard to crack a hard problem...okay didn't mean for that to sound like that, ha! But not every developer is going to crack a hard problem and you'll likely find different developers have different definitions of what a hard problem even is.

puranjay
I've been trying that out lately. Started with the Codecademy Ruby track which was pretty easy. Working through RailsTutorial right now.