Reflections on learning programming

I can’t share the sentiment on constant learning. 20+ years in profession and the fastest delivered, the most practical and the most value-for-client things I made were on a platform that didn’t change since around 2000-ish. Not 1.5x difference, but like more than an order of magnitude.<p>Love for constant learning is a moonshine we drink to avoid looking soberly at our “industry”. It went through one breakthrough per hundred breaking rehashes type of “evolution”, and still goes. Can’t express how morally tired of it I am.<p>My road was also long, broad and bumpy, from assembly to ts with most of the intermediates you may find in popularity&#x2F;year charts. And every time I was hoping it was the last thing I learned, that it is a bullet mostly silver, and where it is not, I know what to do. But this train never stopped and now I know 20-30 times more than what can be effectively used. Not that I’m the brightest bulb out there, but isn’t that a senseless waste of intellectual effort.

&gt; I have been programming for more than 20 years, and I still feel like a novice. I still feel like I am learning the basics. I still feel like I am learning how to learn. I still feel like I am learning how to think.<p>&gt; This is merely a reflection on an activity I deeply love and cherish.<p>This exactly matches my feelings 25+ years in. I&#x27;ve been up and down the stack from games and animation to enterprise crud, to tools and frameworks, to embedded and motor controls. It&#x27;s all so gorgeous and beautiful and stupid and wasteful.<p>There were so many years when I thought I could see a destination just a bit out in the distance. Alas, it was always a mirage. Of course there are skills, but it&#x27;s almost all taste and values at the bottom.<p>My favorite thing in the world now, is pairing with really junior people and learning to see it all anew.

One thing I found weirdly absent is your interaction with the internet. I learned a lot during those time from codes at sourceforge and other sites before stackoverflow existed.<p>Perhaps it&#x27;s the language barrier...

This is a great read. With 20+ years of experience in the industry (various capacities in software development, content marketing, SEO), I am all for the concept of continuous learning. However, we have to establish a foundation first and then start the explorations. That foundation would be there to keep our sanity intact while in pursuit of the next shiny object.<p>Personally, I have been rooted to Python since last 6 years, while exploring the wonderful world of JavaScript.

Really nicely written, thanks

I enjoyed that. It was an honest, humble, useful reflection, and I wish the author well. They seem like a decent sort, and our poor industry desperately needs more “decent sorts.”<p>I had a similar background (especially the hardware core). I feel having a start in hardware, gave a tremendous foundation to all that followed.<p>One of the biggest epiphanies that I had, was when I realized that tech had gotten way too large for even the brightest polymath (which I am not) to master. I had to pick a direction, and walk that way, avoiding getting distracted by squirrels.<p>At the same time, I learned to keep long-term plans extremely vague, and go into focus on only the most immediate tasks. This is also how I tend to do my development architecture. I plan to change plans, and my architectures tend to have a lot of modules, “hooks,” bottlenecks, and “flex points.” Makes pivoting and repurposing straightforward. It’s basically habit, these days. Also, a pretty heavy-duty focus on code quality and documentation[0].<p>WFM, YMMV.<p>For myself, I’ve learned that I really enjoy “making things that people use.” UX, usability, accessibility, localization, and affording mental models. It gets sneered at, a lot, but is a <i>huge</i> challenge, to get right. Many great projects fail, because their engineers think that the UX is just “useless chrome that any schlub can do.”<p>Designing UX is designing around human nature; one of the most complex and unpredictable systems on Earth.<p>What gets a bit grating, but is also just basic human nature (so isn’t going anywhere, and also isn’t just a tech phenomenon), is folks that insist that if we aren’t experts in <i>&lt;TECH THEY ARE GOOD AT &#x2F;&gt;</i> don’t use <i>&lt;TECHNIQUE THEY ARE PROUD OF &#x2F;&gt;</i> or don’t use jargon, that we are “bad programmers.”<p>Personally, I find people that are truly good (as opposed to just facile) in stuff that is not my bailiwick, to be fascinating, and I appreciate having them around. I like to work on “heterogeneous” teams.<p>I think tech is wonderful. It isn’t a monorepo. There’s a hell of a lot of submodules, and each is a flourishing, rich, interesting world, with the ability to engage and enrich you. If you don’t like one, move to another.<p>I will say that <i>shipping</i> software, is different from <i>writing</i> software. There’s a <i>lot</i> of hard, grinding, boring work that we need to power through, and, sometimes, that work exceeds the actual engineering and design work. It’s not for everyone, and demands a different skillset from your standard geek arsenal.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;littlegreenviper.com&#x2F;miscellany&#x2F;leaving-a-legacy&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;littlegreenviper.com&#x2F;miscellany&#x2F;leaving-a-legacy&#x2F;</a>