Ever lost your love for coding? How did you get it back?
Have you ever lost the love for coding? I sure did after a grind as CTO of a startup and then director at a financial services company. Needing everything yesterday and dealing with the corporate politics - I found my work was no longer any fun. I took a sabbatical and leveled up on Python/Django and started having fun again. I even made and sold a micro-startup that was Django based. What I loved was it allowed me to be productive as an individual - I didn't need a team of 10 to produce something. Have you ever lost your love for coding and then gotten it back? If so how?
I was thinking the same scrolling HN, then saw your post.
After 15 years I'm no longer interested. I don't care about the web, css, javascript, react, testing....it's just an increasingly tedious and difficult headache to me.
I have a creative urge, and a problem solving urge, but i feel maybe it can be better expressed through another medium. I just wish I had some way to unchain myself from this 9-6 5 days a week soul-less grind.
Even when I did enjoy my job before, the increasingly complexity, the amount of tedious plumbing, spending hours fixing obscure npm bugs on a tool I built only 3 months ago (and worked perfectly). I just hate it all.
To answer your question, i haven't gotten it back and don't think i ever will.
I haven't lost my love for coding. Coding lost its love for me.
Oh, coding. We used to be so similar. We'd gaze into each other's eyes and get lost for hours, days at a time, teasing the vast boundaries cast by simple questions. But coding changed. You changed, coding, you changed and you left me behind.
All you care about now, coding, is looking in the mirror. Measuring yourself. Analytics. Velocities, sprint points, backlogs; you say you want me, coding, but you really just want me to be there and watch while you go do what we used to do, as the younger developers frolic with the old questions anew. I think, coding, that you're just using me because I accidentally showed you I could do the other things.
You say that we're still coding, coding, but this relationship died a while ago and I'm still around because I'm in love with a ghost.
I've never lost it but I for sure have my days where I wish I never became a SWE and became a baker or something instead. I don't know what sort of projects your coming from but I know big enterprise projects can really become a drag, couple that with politics and it's not a good mix.
For me I always did some coding at home on my own projects. For me one of the most stressful things in coding professionally is dealing with shit outside of your control. Being able to work on a project that is entirely conceived and written by you lets you have that control back, even if it's on a small toy project.
After 40 years (just retired) as a programmer, I still write code every day (but now what I want, mostly art related), I never got tired of writing code or learning new things, and the joy of shipping things that worked. What I did get tired of was high stress work, long hours, idiotic executive decisions and politics, businesses going out of business, interviewing (even when successful) and dealing with terrible work environments.
One thing I always did was learn new things, usually before they became popular, and find a way to work in that; new things can often reinvigorate your love of the coding part. Sadly the other parts have actually gotten worse over the decades; however the opportunities have also expanded, if you can find a way to get in.
This could be a symptom of burnout (or depression) which are slightly wider topics and so have more advice available if that seems to fit.
For regaining joy in programming specifically, I'd say the same as I say to people trying to learn in the first place. Try to find a project that has some real world impact that you actually care about (even if it's trivial or frivolous to others) and use that as a focus to get you through the boring bits.
Similar to woodworking or other crafts, a crappy product that you (or someone else) can actually use for something is a lot more satisfying than a perfectly made thing with no use to anyone.
Yes and no. I've learned to accept the tedium of doing software development at work. But I've grown impatient with the act of coding itself - it just takes too fucking long to do anything. Too much accidental complexity one has to wade through, to express even simplest ideas. My coding cannot keep up with my thoughts, and I find it tiring.
I've ranted on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28568053.
I have some ideas for improvements, but alas, between being a parent and working as a software dev, I hardly have the energy to explore them.
My love of coding is conditional. I still hate work related coding. I love working on my individual projects. I just dont have much drive to do the personal projects after working all day (and child care responsibilities).
After 10 years at a FAANG (and 25 years of programming generally) I haven't lost my love of coding because I hardly get to do any at all. But I have definitely lost my tolerance for process, paper shuffling, politics etc.
I'd love a job again where there was a clear path forward and a bunch of code to write. But in a large org the interesting coding work is eaten up in a feeding frenzy and people like me who don't want to stick their necks out too far end up spending their time putzing around in issue trackers trying to justify their existence.
What I've learned is, generally, the higher the salary band, the more boring the work. And the harder it is to walk away from the $$.
A crude analogy I use is "just because one enjoys sex doesn't mean they would enjoy being a prostitute". To get back to liking coding again I had to do something without deadlines or pressure of delivery and something I just enjoyed doing. That happened to be writing small utilities in F# in my free time.
> What I loved was it allowed me to be productive as an individual - I didn't need a team of 10 to produce something.
For me it was the opposite. Being able to give people an environment in which they can express their creativity and thrive has been wildly satisfying. I love building the boring parts of a codebase (setting up scaffolding, CI/CD, etc) because I love seeing people be able to build off of it.
One thing I can recommend creating your own programming language. If you have no experience with doing this, I would recommend building a parser and interpreter in a language you are familiar with and enjoy.
There is a great guide on how to do this here:
https://craftinginterpreters.com/
You can introduce some exotic syntax, make it do some funny stuff, and just play with it.
Creating a programming language on your own can be very satisfying, and if you don't expect it to go anywhere you take the pressure off trying to get it right, and you can just play.
You build tools because they enhance your quality of life. You code to build tools to enjoy the service they render you. You will not lose your love for coding (in general, outside specific contexts, you have no reasons to lose it), since you have use for tools and by now surely you will have found processes and systems (or, in general, processes and systems are fortunately available) to implement your tools with a good degree of comfort and pleasure.
If you happen to "lose appetite", you are suffering the consequences of unhealty situations. You must fix them.
Many people who must suffer unhealthy situations, bound to conditions difficult to overcome, actually find a shelter in those hours, carved in the day, in which they can fulfil their creativity and productivity, do something useful with their time. You should use your talents to compensate with the ugly sides of "being alive here today" (which should of course be accompanied by the underlying conscience that "there and yore was much worse, though"), to break with the permeating effect of the ugly, which could enter too much into you - but mind you, you should spend time in creativity and productivity and yet work on planning "how to exit the bad situation". Find time for the healthy things to enjoy - coding is one -, and at the same time work/plan to leave, make past and gone, those things that drag you into a loss for appetite.
I'm coding since I'm a kid (around 5, and I'm now nearing 50), mainly C/C++ with the occasional whatever other language you encounter in a normal coder life.
I had lost it a few years ago. Gdb fatigue, tried higher-level languages (js, java, etc.) but it didn't click. And then I discovered rust nearing its 1.0 release. That was it.
After introducing it at work and being really pleased with the result, I changed jobs and now use it less, but even when coding in C/C++ I'm happier now.
Learning rust has made me a better C coder, it has made me interested in building stuff again, I'm even back doing side projects (although I have a family so I have to spare my time).
There are many new shiny stuff, find the one that clicks with you. Or find something else (a friend of mine is now a paragliding instructor), life is short.
Ironically, by putting in less effort at work. I know this sounds awful and a lot of PMs would probably gasp at hearing this, but I started to exert myself less at work -- worried less about code reviews, stopped stressing over small mistakes, accepted that I'm not producing the highest quality code, stopped trying to go the 110% to impress my peers and higher-ups. Really, I stopped caring as much. Choosing software engineering as your profession carries with it the high probability that it will ruin your hobby of programming.
I found that I was able to refocus most of that energy to when I'm off work and can actually get my creative juices flowing on projects I care about and have control over.
I am an embedded systems guy who recently started coding in React and I can relate my story if its useful to the OP or anyone for that matter. Apart from embedded code(C) and a few python scripts that i wrote for a course, i dont have any singificant experience. I started looking into browser develeopment during the pandemic and got hooked into React. The learning cruve felt like I was learning to drive all over again. But, in the end, I just sustained my interest and kept chugging. Fast forward a year, I stumbled upon a uservoice forum for a very popular enterprise chat app that lacks a basic feature that You would consider a brith right and the customers have been screaming for this feature for about 3 years now. Some of the comments show the customers are willing to pay for an add-on. I have been coding in the side for the past month or so and i am in the process of deploying the solution to their marketplace. I am in the process also am learning how to use their cloud deployment tools, create a static landing page for my app, scrape the users info from the uservoice and reach out to them and cold email them about the app when i release it. Point being, coding becomes an absolute chore if you dont have an end goal. Usually coding is a means to and end and that end is a business solution to a pressing problem. Find the problem and code the solution. Hope this anecdote helps.
I started coding in the mid 90's and have been there, to different degrees, several times. It usually is because I'm in a rut, using the same languages and technologies in the same domain. Another new way to not shoot yourself in the foot with Javascript... So, mix it up and find something challenging that you find personally interesting:
- learn a language or technology that you've always wanted to, but never had a good "reason" to
- change your abstraction: if you are a javascripter learn C/C++ or assembly. If you are a VHDL guru, go learn some Python, Ruby, Elixir, or Javascript.
- Take one of the "how does that work?" questions that have been inside your brain since you first used a computer and get about figuring it out. The dang things are fascinating at every level, from transistors to gates, to operating systems, to compilers/interpreters, to micro-services *AND* it is all documented and available on the interwebs.
- learn more about your tools. There is nothing that makes me feel efficient and productive like when I'm jamming out code, making edits about as fast as I can think of them, floating from tool to tool in a smooth cycle of iterative development. Most of that is just patterns of keyboard shortcuts.
- program away the boring parts. If you have "boring" tasks, see if you can program or automate them away. The programming should be less boring than the task you are automating and you will have your first minion.
If you have time, try another style of coding.
CRUD and business coding can get quite tedious, especially under artificial pressure, for example to hit arbitrary management deadlines, which just fuel resentment.
Try writing a game in a new language. If you have kids, teach them to write a game, while learning yourself, eg in something simple like lua.
For me, programming 'in the small', optimizing loops for example, is much more satisfying than modeling complex or byzantine business systems with sprawling code.
Stop coding and let the reservoir of desire build back up again.
OP here - One of the things that really helped me get back into coding was to listen to podcasts. Especially "Django Chat" and "Talk Python to Me". I'd put them on while jogging and they really helped me to get a survey of the Django/Python ecosystem and also what a warm and welcoming community it is.
I was planning to go get my MBA, then I transferred teams and suddenly I like programming again. To be fair I don't think it was so much the coding that I didn't like, as everything that came with it (at least on my previous team) which in turn made me not want to code anymore.
Sure, burnout is a real thing. Do lots of other things. Wait for an idea to find you. It should be just for you. It's not for money. Or ego. Ignore the devil on your shoulder that says it won't work, that it won't make money, that it's not furthering your career, that it's not solving the world's problems, that it's not padding your resume. Don't worry about how long it takes. What language it uses. What stack. What other people will think. Just do it because it interests you. If you still find that rewarding then your love is still there. If not, then perhaps the love has truly faded.
I lost it when I was tasked of fixing bugs introduced by other engineers. That shit is soul draining as hell.
I resigned, started working on my own projects and tools. I am earning less right now but the peace of mind and interest in coding is back.
I never stopped loving to code...but for many years i only kept it as very mild dabbling on the side...Back in the early 2000s, i was a lowly web developer (mostly simple html, javascript, classic ASP/vbscript, sql server stuff) for a large multinational enterprise...in fact for most of my career i've only worked for medium or large multi-nationals (except for 1 year in a non-profit). What brought me back was 2 things:
1. learning python...which made me so productive without needing to learn some verbose language like java, etc.
2. open source software that let me build stuff without needing to pay large license fees.
I lost my love for coding after the Snowden revelations. The story of programming stopped being, "to make the world a better place," and became a means to a much more nefarious end. I don't have anything to do with the NSA or that type of work, but that made me realize that the programming trade was mainly used for less than altruistic purposes by most people employing them. This includes selling ads and all that garbage.
I still work as a programmer because that's my trade and my work ethic allows me to do it well; and lets face it, I have to pay bills, but my passion for it is gone.
This has happened to me a couple times. Feeling tired of what I call the "tech rat race".
Both times some time off and working on an idea for fun sparked interest again. I would say if you take time off, don't feel pressured to do anything tech related. At some point you may get a creative idea and then just follow that. One time I finished a gameboy emulator I had started a few years ago, the other I made a little video game. And if you don't get the urge to do anything tech the whole time you're off, at least you'll have some R&R to go back to work with a fresh mind.
Hobby projects. Make something that you care about and want to have.
Work on something you're not getting paid for and that nobody's making you do.
I find it 1000x harder to get excited about code I need to write vs. code for the current bee in my bonnet.
Do something different. I program web backends mostly, but something about fiddling with an Arduino is a totally different thing and I can enjoy it as a completely separate activity.
After 15 years I realized that all the code I’ve ever written is nothing fancier than a clumsily wired breadboard. I’m transitioning to engineering management as I get way more out of coaching, planning, and product management, and it’s a lot more challenging and rewarding.
I can still scratch the coding itch by writing scripts or utilities or visualizations. Writing something for just me or five people is just as satisfying as writing something for a billion people.
As long as it's not web-based, I still have an interest. I completely lost all desire to touch any "web code"
But if we're talking locally running python or controlling hardware via microcontrollers, or things like that- I'm not well-versed in any of it, but it still grabs my interest, and the little I have done, even just small learning projects, has been fulfilling.
If it requires anything web-based, then it drains me of all happiness.
Starting again after a break is a big help. Likewise trying to do something else for a while and realizing that the grass is always greener helps to get things in perspective.
I also think if you love coding then moving up the ladder is neither necessary or helpful because once you get into having to be responsible for other folk than yourself, fun tends to drop off. Coding is potentially a creative activity if you allow it to be.
I never lost an interest in it. It is just the corporate politics comes with the job, but that's not related to programming itself. Though, the only time work-programming gets interesting is if there is some problem to be solved that requires more than routine development.
Doing something completely different is really nice, to toy around with, at least if you have enough spare time to do something.
Not at all a coder, but a painter. Ever now and then I loose the allure of my profusion. What usually brings it back is a change of medium (e.g. from oil painting to digital painting, or from large paintings to small ones). I guess that translates to a change in coding language in your game.
Yes, and I never gained it back. I realized I could have a lot more impact on the things that frustrated me higher up in the org as either an architect or product manager. Those were the parts of the job I liked anyway; not the part where I had to spend a day debugging a JSON parser.
I had for a while after coding every day for 20 years: turned out to be a burn out. It came back after moving to management aka not coding for a while. It's been back for almost a decade now.
Switched to a functional language (Elixir) from an OO one (Ruby). Now it's only JS that annoys me, since CSS is declarative and therefore less of a headache.
For me it's about first feeling good personally. And to me that means working out and staying healthy.
Been at it for 39 years. Still love it.
I’ve been playing with Godot and building small games. Web programming is boring for me.
It's not that I lost my love, but I have experienced massive burnout from coding.