It seems like my biggest problem is that I can't read large amounts of code. I don't get to participate in interesting work. I forget everything, even stuff I write down.<p>Now days I work in sustaining engineering and I'm fairly bad at it (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7188437)<p>I've been allegedly been doing this for years but it really feels like I have the experience of someone who's recently out of school.<p>I setup a github and try writing out stuff on my own but no one cares about it. It's mostly private repos anyways. I spend 10-20 hours after hours working on extra stuff. That may be too much as I have other (serious, very real) commitments<p>Some of you will say 'get good'. That's technically true but it's also what I'm trying to do.<p>I'm wondering if I've just made serious career errors or maybe I am just permanently screwed. If I never give up and never quit, maybe I'm at my limits?<p>Maybe I'm a leech like another askHN post talked about (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7196455) and don't know it or how to fix it?
My bitbucket repository[1] has 8 public projects and over 25 private. I know people don't care about them but I have fun writing them. That is the key, liking what you do, not do it for getting recognition or else. If one day you can come up with a complete project that you think other people can enjoy you are more than welcome to share it and push it to take off, but the most important thing is that you do it for you first. it's not even about being good, I have seen simple projects taking off easily and amazing super complex projects getting shut down immediately.<p>[1] <a href="https://bitbucket.org/Duiker101" rel="nofollow">https://bitbucket.org/Duiker101</a>
Neither of these 2 posts say how long you've been doing this work for.<p>Maybe your just using a language that doesn't relate to you? Have you tried writing in Java? PHP? Ruby? You might be a crappy C programmer but excel in Java.<p>I sucked in FoxPro but really excel at PHP and am getting pretty good at Obj-C. It's all a matter of how badly you want to learn something. PHP is my career, but I want to be an iOS developer. So everyday, I try. I fail often, but the more I've worked with the language, the better I've gotten and I struggle with it less now adays.
It's debatable who actually does read large amounts of code; see: <a href="http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/</a><p>I personally only read large amounts of code when trying to grasp the overall structure of a large application. But I'd rather not read large amounts of code; I'd rather read a design document! But not everyone writes them... :-(<p>I would opine (based on experience!) that work like bug-fixing <i>can</i> be so monotonous that your mind starts getting a little mushy as you do it day after day after year after year. It doesn't tend to be the kind of work that promotes great engineering thought. It's . . . a job. Which is okay, as far as it goes. But if you want to grow as an engineer, you need to design and build things.<p>I would suggest reading:<p><a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/" rel="nofollow">http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/</a><p>and especially:<p><a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup" rel="nofollow">http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup</a><p>which talks about professionalism for software engineers. You might find some inspiration there. (And the whole book, even if you don't build web applications, is still a worthwhile read to gain some insight into how a professional software engineer thinks.)
It doesn't sound like you're passionate about the work you're doing. Find a way to bring passion to your code and it will practically write itself.