Title: If this ends up dead and nothing more than a semi-introspective rant, so be it, served its purpose.<p>I started programming when I was 16. I am now over twice that and still programming. I don&#x27;t like the realities of day-to-day software engineering. I cannot shake the feeling that I&#x27;ve spent the last 16 years doing it just because of... inertia. The 16-year old me just liked to hack around, learn fast, write shoddy scripts that pushed the limits of what I knew. So I know nothing about windows internals but I&#x27;d like to write some cheats for a game I&#x27;m playing? Let&#x27;s dive in. And I loved it.<p>But I never had any love for the &quot;art&quot; of programming. I can, however, say with some confidence that I have a good sense of what makes a good, clean, sustainable solution - but the answer to that question isn&#x27;t even a matter of programming, but of humans and how we work, and how we use our brains. You know, it&#x27;s the old &quot;you&#x27;re too dumb to debug smart code in an emergency at 2AM&quot;. This can be extended to 95% of problems in my eyes. We need to be nice to other human beings working with us - that may be other people, or even may be me, but 3 months from now, tired, trying to hit a deadline or find a bug.<p>I digress, but I think I&#x27;m trying to convey the point that... I never really felt at home in my job. It all seemed off. And I have trouble figuring out where the problem lies.<p>Have you had moments where you did a sober double take and decided to alter your course or commit to it and stay on it? Heck, maybe close the laptop altogether.<p>I know this topic comes up every once in a while, and the usual answer seems to be burn out, but hopefully I can put a spin on it by focusing on what questions a person can ask themselves to better figure out what they want out of their job in the short, medium and long term.<p>What questions would you say one can ask themselves to really get to the bottom of it?
Upvote: