Why software engineers like woodworking

I have a few hundred hours under my belt with a dining table, chairs, and even something with a roof to show for it.<p>For me, a huge chunk of each project’s fun was planning. Going through my first two prototypes in Sketchup (rather than in real life) was a massive amount of fun. That part really was not so different to hacking code, really.<p>The physical work itself is then completely different to software engineering. Nothing is simple — every step of the project presents some unique problem that you have to work around carefully. Maybe you forgot to include the width of the saw in a measurement. Or your stock has a knot in exactly the wrong place. Or you didn’t plan the assembly in the best way to optimise for clamping. Or you drip glue awkwardly and have to clean the first of six benches up before oiling. Or you want to add a shamfer in an awkward place to a piece you’ve already partly assembled.<p>Imagine having to stop work every few hours to hone the edge on an IDE that’s gone blunt. Imagine running out of 8mm if-statements (dowels) and having to improvise some more so you can peg a project together.<p>There’s no homogeneity with a natural product. Everything is slow and methodical with few opportunities to hack &#x2F; test &#x2F; prototype. You have to think and solve problems that you never thought would happen in a new kind of way because <i>you can’t roll back or undo</i>.<p>Above all, there are many things you just cannot automate. Sanding up the frame of a pergola getting it ready for oiling is going to be O(n) at best, with only ever a single processor to throw at the problem which itself is hard bounded by mealtimes and hours-in-day.<p>I love it because it’s <i>not</i> like software.

This is great. I took up woodworking last year. The only thing about it that bummed me out is how expensive it is. I didn’t expect that. There’s a saying: “Why would I buy my wife a $500 dresser when I can build it myself for $1000?”<p>Very true with wood unfortunately.

Why <i>some</i> software engineers like woodworking.<p>I have been a software engineer all my working life, and I absolutely despise woodworking or anything that smacks of DIY. I find them unbelievably stressful and frustrating partly because I can see how I want things to be, they never work out nearly that good and I can never fix them.

Fellow coder and woodworker here. I can relate to the article for sure and I&#x27;d add that in my case I make a point of avoiding using software or computer-assisted anything in my woodworking. So no Fusion 360, no SketchUp, no CNC, no laser cutters, no 3D printers.<p>It sounds radical but it feels important to my mental health to keep my woodworking physical an analog as possible. Now, I&#x27;m still a power tool junkie so I&#x27;m not about to give up my table saw or planer.

All this and more. I&#x27;m fortunate enough that while I could afford to hire trades to do all the things I&#x27;ve done in and outside of our house in the last couple years (gutted&#x2F;rebuilt kitchen &amp; bathrooms, built phase one of a three phase deck&#x2F;backyard oasis) I have to keep telling my spouse, yes, we could hire someone, but I really LIKE doing this stuff. Like really like.<p>It&#x27;s now got to a point that the requests, and &quot;He can build that&quot; comments to friends are not accompanied with the trademark eye roll.<p>All the points the author hit ring true - planning, design, tool choice, etc have similar parallels to code and systems I work with during the day. But, I can cook meals for my family knowing that I built that space, then sit on the deck watching the wind in the trees knowing how many pieces of pressure treated lumber are holding me up and how it felt putting them all together. I never get that visceral connection using a web app.

I have a different angle: I love the idea of woodworking and metalworking and building houses and all those manual professional activities, but much more than actually doing it. I enjoy reading professional books about the theory and practice of those things which are both extremely old (thousands of years) as well as always adopted to the latest machinery trends. They&#x27;re all grounded in reality and do useful things (usually). That&#x27;s inspiring for me and a counterpoint to a lot of the short time shit we do in software development. I&#x27;d like to think that ideally I&#x27;d mostly work on software that is similar in use to what woodworking, metalworking and traditional construction produces.

This rings very true! This 1000%:<p><pre><code> Once my wife learned of my plans, the requests for custom pieces started rolling in. Knowing that whatever I build has an eager recipient awaiting it is rocket fuel for motivation. And since it&#x27;s my wife asking for it, it&#x27;s easier to justify buying the tools I &quot;need&quot;. </code></pre> I&#x27;ve grown my tool collection repeatedly this way :)

If your work is abstract, making something concrete is very satisfying. I used to have a big yard, and loved spending an hour on the riding mower enjoying the clouds and the birds. When I was done I could see something that I had accomplished.

Machining and metal work is the same for me. And now we have a lathe and mill and lots of precise measuring instruments. It is fun to re-create things like stirling engines and steam engines and work your way through the technology of the industrial revolution. Machining and precision are more fun than wood work for me. It made wood working seem rather easy by comparison as the level of precision required is often less by an order of magnitude or more when wood working. If your goal is just to build useful things MIG welding is very accessible and with a bit of practice you can fabricate useful strong things with metal as well. Wood work and metal work can also be combined of course. Metal working and machining definitely gets more expensive than wood working though.

I like my wooden table because it isn’t built out of smaller tables which are built out of smaller tables which are built out of voodoo incantations which are built out of something that occasionally causes the table to collapse into a pile of dust.

An early facetious definition of &quot;hacker&quot; is &quot;one who carves furniture with an axe&quot;. Loyd Blankenship, author of the Hacker Manifesto, had an e-commerce site in the late 90s&#x2F;early 2000s through which he sold furniture he made.<p>There seems to be some connection here. I think it&#x27;s just that hackers love making stuff, and woodworking is one of the most ancient and fundamental ways of making stuff. Materials and equipment are plentiful and easily obtained. A basic wood shop can be put together in a garage without special facilities. No special qualifications are needed, outside of time and practice. Almost anyone can get started, but the skill ceiling is high.

I built HTML emails once upon a time - &quot;in the trenches sending spam emails&quot; is how I describe it. One can only send so many undesired trash missives that literally have no effect upon the physical world before you need an outlet. Woodworking allows me to use my skills, raw strength, and attention to detail to create things that look beautiful, are useful, and don&#x27;t get deleted instantly.<p>I got out of HTML email a long time ago, thankfully.

I like woodworking because it takes me away from the world of purely mental, metal things. It also doesn&#x27;t hurt at all that it was the profession Jesus worked before fulfilling the Messianic prophecy.<p>I also find the products of my work aesthetically pleasing or useful. I am very happy, grateful to be able-bodied to do any amount of woodworking. I hope everyone else gets to enjoy something like that feeling for even just a minute.

Interestingly, woodworking is where I get to apply math, 3d modeling, drawing, and other things I dreamed tech would let me do. As a software engineer I don’t do many of the things I envisioned, at least not the way I hoped, so woodworking scratched the itches still.<p>I got into woodworking as my first real job. It’s such a great pastime too, though. Just like this post says.<p>Something I highly recommend if you find woodworking too expensive is to look into what you can do with basic hand tools and found wood. Try making spoons from green wood, for example. If you can get into it, it’s practically free and incredibly gratifying.<p>There are plenty of cool things you can make and even gift to people without a single power tool.

Can confirm, I started woodworking this year. It&#x27;s every bit as satisfying as they hint.<p>It started as building project boxes for my Rasp Pi projects, and scaled up from there.<p>In fact, when we were putting together a highchair, one of the legs was the wrong parity (we got two of Left leg instead of R+L), so I pulled it out to the drill press and drilled the proper holes. The company gave it to us for free for our trouble, which basically paid for the drill press.<p>Also built small bookshelves for the nursery to match the wife&#x27;s &quot;Vision&quot;, coat hangers &#x2F; key rack near the side door. All kinds of useful things!

I love wood working. I wish you could see my massive deck and outdoor sauna I made last year. It was one of the most fulfilling things I&#x27;ve done. It&#x27;s also like meditation for me. You need to keep a clear head and maintain focus. In much of meditation there is a mantra you repeat to yourself. In wood working my mantra is the length of cut I need to make. I keep on repeating 15 and 5&#x2F;8&#x27;s (or whatever measurement I need) and I think it calms me down just as a meditation mantra.

Interesting! I actually grew up building residential homes and apartments with my brother and father. Later, took over part of the business ran it for a while before making the switch to software engineering.<p>These days, I have my own little workshop for carpentry and welding when I&#x27;m not writing code. I think it&#x27;s all about the fact that you&#x27;re using your hands, it &quot;feels&quot; more involved and intimate than designing software sometimes and it&#x27;s relaxing.

I used to like it when my grandfather was alive; he had this large barn with all the tools and he made everything by hand, teaching me from a young age. Unfortunately all his tools etc disappeared into some kind of family feud and it is too big a hurdle to start again. I enjoy electronics and robotics and cooking and walking as hobbies; not much time for other things. But I miss the smell of wood and work. Who knows, maybe later; not dead yet.

Woodworking does come with a distinct lack of &quot;undo&quot; though... that&#x27;s the thing that tends to get me :P

I did a lot of woodworking and lutherie during my PhD in High Energy Theoretical Physics.<p>When you work all week in 20 dimensional non-Riemannian manifolds with torsion, it&#x27;s really nice to come back to Euclidean 3D space and make wood chips the weekend!

Yeah, this is me. The main reason I don’t have any personal programming projects is because all of my free time is taken up with family and woodworking. I’m on sabbatical right now and I’m spending almost all my time in my workshop.

Funny, I started woodworking partially because I was doing less development (more on the management side).<p>Woodworking scratches that &quot;build something&quot; itch.<p>Plus, it has a high SAF (spouse approval factor). If I spend a Saturday writing a software tool, my wife is wondering why the lawn wasn&#x27;t mowed. If I spend it building a coffee table, she&#x27;s delighted :D

You also see over representation of coders climbing and in the martial arts (particularly grappling) - I&#x27;ve done both myself. I&#x27;d do wood working if I had the space. I don&#x27;t really know why its like this, except that they all make sense to me in the same way that writing software does. Any other reason is a just so story.

For me it&#x27;s been art. I started shortly after covid began. I started simple, cheap paint brushes, cheap paints, cheap canvases. Watched youtube videos (there are tons of tutorials) and tried. I post all of mine to instagram. It&#x27;s fun to look back at how it began and how it&#x27;s going. I got bored with it for a bit, then got back into it earlier this year. I changed my format. Still acrylic paints, but now I get 2ft x 2ft sheets of drywall from lowes precut, use drywall plaster or tile mortar (both have different effects) and brush the acrylic on or airbrush it on.<p>It&#x27;s to the point where I have to either start rotating out pieces or attend an art show and try to sell some. Just running out of wall space in the house. To attend an art show means I think my work is good enough that someone might pay for it and same as with programming, theres some imposter syndrome happening here.<p>We&#x27;ll see...

A lot of this comes down to getting into a flow state. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.headspace.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;flow-state" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.headspace.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;flow-state</a><p>For a lot of people, software engineering is a craft. It&#x27;s not exclusively about completing a task as it is working on something, getting into a flow state and designing&#x2F;building something elegantly for a specific outcome. Woodworking is no different really and probably why so many software engineers like it as a hobby too.<p>Interestingly enough, I remember visiting and touring the <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lie-nielsen.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lie-nielsen.com&#x2F;</a> showroom. The business has been around for years, but from what I remember, they mentioned developing a really strong community of developers&#x2F;engineers over the last 10 years or so.

There&#x27;s a saying at my workplace that goes like<p>&gt; Something with wood<p>It&#x27;s a short, dumbed-down version of &quot;screw it, I&#x27;d rather do something with wood instead&quot; and every dev recites it every once in a while when they encounter strange bugs or other annoyances.

Software can often be intangible, abstracted and make you feel disconnected from the implementation.<p>Whereas woodworking is highly tangible and physical, which can make you feel <i>connected</i> to the work.<p>The same can be said for many other types of craft work too...

I would argue that software engineers like woodworking and other manual activities because of their differences with software engineering rather than their similarities.<p>I like to take photos because when I press the button a photo is taken, it&#x27;s not going to output an error that will need a debugger to solve. I like to draw because when I move the pencil on the paper, a line appears, instead of the paper having an error message that requires me to contact their support to solve. I also don&#x27;t need to update my paper to be compatible with my pencil.<p>I like those things because of the certainty that a specific action will lead to a specific result.

I am a software engineer and started making wooden table tennis blades. The only frustrating part is finding good woods, tools, ... In software you just need a computer and you can start being productive :-).

&gt; What would I do if I was born a hundred years ago, before computers were invented?<p>&gt; And the answer is now clear:<p>&gt; Find something to build.<p>My great-grandfather was born ~110 years ago and became a master machinist. Kept those giant steam locomotives functioning. Grandfather was a construction worker who went into civil engineering and two of his brothers made airplanes in their garages, father is an electrical engineer turned software engineer and now I’m in software as well. Hopefully the party isn’t over just yet.<p>If I lived a hundred years ago I’d like to think I’d be building as well.

This post reminds me of my dad. He was a software engineer but also a luthier (guitar maker) and talked about a lot of these things. Sadly I inherited absolutely zero practical skills whatsoever (I think I&#x27;m probably most of the way to dyspraxic) and find stuff like that hugely frustrating. The ability to refine, repeat, and be precise that computers bring is hugely comforting to me, whereas real world work is so messy and non-deterministic when I get involved(!)

I never noticed that trend. None of my coworkers do woodworking specifically, some know enough not to mistake wood chisels for screwdrivers, and they may actually be rather good at it, but it is out of a wider set of skills that may include masonry, electronics, sewing, mechanic, etc... the usual jack-of-all-trades hobbyist crafty kind who do stuff themselves.<p>I can think of a few reason why software engineer appear to like woodworking.<p>- They are overrepresented on the internet, me, a software engineer who mounted a shelf a few years ago is more likely to exchange woodworking tips on the internet than my granddad who was an actual 8 fingered woodworker.<p>- If most of the people you know are software engineers, the ones who like woodworking are likely to be software engineers too, a simple statistical bias.<p>- Woodworking is technical work, software engineering is technical work, it is more related than, say, team sports, dancing or organizing birthday parties (some software engineers do that too of course, but it is not something they are known for).<p>- Software engineers earn the right amount of money for that kind of hobby. Woodworking is rather expensive, good tools are not cheap, neither is the space your workshop takes and the wood, especially now. But is not as expensive as racing cars and flying helicopters.

The same applies to music production, in my opinion.<p>You build a working environment of your own (with your choice of VSTs, presets that you have saved...), you definitely have way too many tools, you have a finite monetary budget (although the toughest limitation is your time and your sanity), you have the fastest feedback loop ever, and hopefully you&#x27;ll have some users eventually :_)

You should take a look at Rex Kruger on youtube. He likes to focus on making his own tools, working with older unpowered tools, and looking at historical building techniques. He also is great if you are not looking to do a huge investment in woodworking, and just want to learn how to get by with working with some scraps: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;c&#x2F;RexKrueger" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;c&#x2F;RexKrueger</a>

I get enjoyment from the <i>opposite</i> of point #2, &#x27;Too many tools&#x27;.<p>I&#x27;ve got a Shopsmith, which is a reconfigureable multi-purpose machine. It&#x27;s a drill press, turning lathe, table saw, jigsaw, and several others. You turn different locks to swivel the machine around and attach well-engineered implements to make the single motor power a different woodworking configuration.<p>As an engineer, it&#x27;s fantastic. You get to make the machine do what you want. And you are rewarded for being careful and measuring things as you reconfigure, because the swivels and joints introduce the possibility of mis-alignment. Mis-alignment would show up in the finished product (the cut wood). So being fussy pays off!<p>For programmers, it&#x27;s great.

Unless it&#x27;s my tiny phone screen I&#x27;m surprised this video did not surface yet <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;ShEez0JkOFw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;ShEez0JkOFw</a> (Tim Ewald - Clojure: Programming with Hand Tools)

I hate working with wood, you can&#x27;t weld it.<p>I really like this article though, and relate completely. I do metalworking and fabrication (building race cars) as a side hobby because having a tactile, physical thing to tinker with helps cool off from the daily software work.

I know two different engineers who quit their engineering jobs to be professional woodworkers (or finish carpenters, is that close enough?). The first one started taking classes in traditional woodworking, then those classes turned into 2-week retreats, then finally he just quit and started making fine furniture and little pieces he sold online. He said he liked it for more or less the same reasons listed in this article: planning, execution, control, satisfaction.<p>I told the second engineer about the first one, after he told me he&#x27;d started getting into woodworking. I was laughing, like: &quot;be careful, you&#x27;re next!&quot; and sure enough he was.

I had no idea this was a thing, but I did notice Chris Lattner (of LLVM) is a woodworker.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nondot.org&#x2F;sabre&#x2F;Woodworking.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nondot.org&#x2F;sabre&#x2F;Woodworking.html</a>

I feel like everyone romanticizes wood working.

as a former woodworker and former many other things, I dont need spinning blades or load noises or things to clean up or mess up that cant be a easily refactored, thanks. the only trade I am still using is cooking

We all know why: Woodworking is a subtractive medium: you build up large structures by irrevocably removing material from each constituent part.<p>Who loves deleting code? Everyone who’s been around long enough, that’s who!

I would love to get into woodworking. Unfortunately there are no classes available outside of working hours in my native tongue in the country I live :) I have dreams of building benches and such.

I mostly play with metalwork as a hobby. But I did make some of my furniture, mostly because I couldn&#x27;t find what I wanted (bed, workbench), or because I wanted to build them in-place (bookshelves, different workbench, some storage).<p>The furniture thus far as been mainly functional - not that it is unattractive, but it is all very form-follows function. I rather like that in general, but also see my mistakes and room for improvement. But then I&#x27;m probably moving soon, and may well need to rethink and downsize furniture anyway.

I can relate to this. I pick up woodworking a few years ago, before the pandemic, when wood was actually cheap. I chose to pursue a semi-&#x27;pure&#x27; manual hand tools only, and I&#x27;m feeling pretty satisfied. I embark on small projects, boxes, book dividers, etc., to disconnect from software development. If you want to pursue this manual woodworking, search YT for Wright Wood, Rex Krueger, Paul Sellers, etc. Craft masters.

Glue takes far longer to dry than even C++ takes to compile. Not a fan for that reason only. Ok, also, no undo button. Wrenching on my car, tho. That&#x27;s fun.

That&#x27;s a long and thorough list of all I <i>hate</i> about software development and hope to <i>fix</i> (at least a bit of it)...

In my case, it’s more like “why woodworkers like software engineering?”<p>Grandfather was a farmer, father a polytechnic teacher, … i have learned to work with wood, metal, cows, roofs, ducks, cars, … and computers.<p>The last one paid more in our era. I still do the others when they make sense.<p>I find woodworking quiet and beautiful. Metalworking, not so much :)

I&#x27;m not into woodworking, but give me a CNC milling machine and you can lock me up and throw the key away.

If I wanted to get into woodworking while living in an apartment in a city, any recommendations on books, places to look, or videos on how to get started? I&#x27;ve been looking for a hobby to take myself out of the whole digital grind and find some type of stress releasing, but challenging hobby

If you have a kid, it&#x27;s a nice hobby, provided you have the space to to use as a shop. You can involve the kid and he will love that.<p>It isn&#x27;t valid only for woodworking. Anything that isn&#x27;t very complicated and doesn&#x27;t take a very long time, will do. Even repairing old cars or bikes.

I&#x27;ve recently taken up basketry for much the same reasons, but it has the added bonus that you don&#x27;t really need any special equipment and the cost of materials is pretty low. Just so satisfying holding a thing in your hand that software just doesn&#x27;t have.

For me it’s simple. Woodworking is a problem that I can solve. I mean I am trying to meet market demand and producing a product that I know will be used. Now the part of planning, design, “procuring funding”, building the product and “selling” it is all a story end to end.

I make my own surfboards for similar reasons. I tend to only code in my free time if I can&#x27;t surf, or work on my next board (night time or no surf). Not sure how wood working it toddler friendly though?

I really enjoy woodworking (building instruments), but like writing boilerplate code - there&#x27;s a really boring part to what I do: sanding<p>I&#x27;m pretty sure sanding takes up 90% of time spent on my projects.

I also think there is a precision aspect to woodworking which is similar to writing code. I like to take the time to make my cuts exact, make sure things line up properly etc.

I always feel a bit of a fraud because I am not at all into things like woodworking, tinkering, fixing, making. I don&#x27;t even enjoy solving puzzles much tbh.

I’d think that programmers would love gearworking; building mechanical clockwork contraptions, translating code into the physical realm.<p>Are there any active communities for that?

I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s not only woodworking, few of my engineer friends are working with leather, growing vegetables, fixing bicycles and one is making knives.

woodworking ~= toy&#x2F;side software projects<p>carpentry ~= software engineering (within an organization)<p>I think woodworking is attractive to software engineers because its akin to building side&#x2F;toy software projects. Autonomy, building from scratch, requirements&#x2F;AC&#x27;s self-defined etc.<p>Software engineering professionally is more like carpentry&#x2F;trades. Carpenters work in teams, work on one specific part of a house and may not touch other parts of the house, do not design but mainly implement. You might even liken SWEs to tradesmen generally in that there can be a high degree of specialization: plumbers, electricians, finish carpenters, tilers etc being the devOps, secOps, backend, frontend etc.<p>Woodworking != carpentry<p>Again, a big part of the draw to woodworking for SWE is the same as the draw for a software side&#x2F;toy project: it&#x27;s more fun and fulfilling to build something in it&#x27;s entirety, from scratch, and by yourself (especially if you do the opposite in your day job).<p>Also, be wary of quitting your job to become a woodworker. Woodworking professionally does not necessarily resemble what is posted in this article or linked to. Many woodworkers start out as carpenters and learn on the job or as a side hustle to carpentry. Many woodworkers do not design the pieces they make&#x2F;install. Many parts of the piece you are making could be prefab. The amount of time you&#x27;ll be able to spend manually sharpening your hand tools will be limited. Grass is always greener: physical work is rewarding, but anyone who has done carpentry and&#x2F;or woodworking their whole life will have infirmities, ailments, and maybe even disabilities caused by their career. There is woodworking fantasy and their is woodworking reality.<p>And also, tastes have changed and most don&#x27;t care to pay for quality woodwork. Odds are the wealthy homeowner is going to take your beautiful mahogany built-ins and paint them purple because that&#x27;s what the interior designer asked for. And that&#x27;s if your lucky. Most folks don&#x27;t buy custom built furniture, they buy IKEA. By all means take up woodworking and quit you SWE job, but assume that you will very quickly dip into the fortune you amassed as a SWE. I think there should be more craft in this world, so I wouldn&#x27;t discourage it outright -- but make sure you have the material means to sustain this woodworking fantasy.

Unfortunately the amount of space available makes my budget for tool storage zero. I can imagine I’d like woodworking if I had the chance.

Personally I like woodworking because I get to hit things with a mallet.<p>It&#x27;s the small things, sometimes.

Woodworking lacks rigor, too much &quot;doing by feel&quot; and too few carpenters have proper structural&#x2F;mechanical engineering training. I recommend EE as a hobby for software engineers instead, RF and signal processing are just as concrete as woodworking and much more practical.

Anyone here switched careers from software to joinery&#x2F;carpentry?

I like woodworking because it doesn’t easily forgive a mistake.

This is a great example of how developer-centric the conversations are on this site. I get it -- hacker news, not woodworker news -- but next time I get frustrated with how it seems like the hacker news key to solve humanistic problems is to throw more tech at them, I&#x27;ll remember how this article wasn&#x27;t called &quot;Why woodworkers like software engineering.&quot; The nth degree of this thesis would be something like &quot;Why software engineers like going outside.&quot;

I thought it was just me

software engineers like fucking too.