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Comment by Ididntdothis | Hacker News Reader

“only to find that they actually hated programming”

That’s an important point. A lot of people will find programming very boring and tedious. I wouldn’t recommend this career to most people.

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Yeah most of the stories were from people that were lured in by huge salaries and relative "ease" to finding a job.

What I ask people is, "Do you like solving puzzles?"

Because as a programmer you get paid to solve new problems, not old ones.

Well, there are a lot of old problems to solve as well, but in general productive developers develop proficiency at using established solutions to them. There is a real skill in being able to find a solution to a similar problem and convert it to fit the new problem as well as being able to break a new large problem down to a number of small old solved problems a few new small problems.

”Because as a programmer you get paid to solve new problems, not old ones.”

In a lot of programming jobs you will repeatedly solve the same problem or a variation of it.

Yep, there’s always the job available of "customer wants a new form" and "make this wordpress site match some designer's PSD" out there

"it's like facebook, but for [X]"

Careful with that question. I have been programming for 25 years and love it, but you won't find me solving just any puzzle just for fun.

I think you are right overall, but depends on how you ask. I like programming puzzles but hate the Rubik's cube, Sudoku, crossword etc...

me too, I think it's probably due to the fact solving a Rubik's cube is pointless and accomplishes nothing as opposed to the puzzles in programming which do. I's rather write an algorithm that solves Sudoku than actually do Sudoku.

The vast majority of the effort in the software development field is essentially writing the exact same code over and over again, dealing with other people, and spending hours tracking down why your implementation of a super common pattern is broken because you misplaced a letter somewhere.

Maybe 1% is actually solving new or "interesting" problems, which is good, because imagine if other fields were like that. Imagine if a plumber had to re-invent the wheel every time they installed a shower or faucet.

Yeah a better way to phrase "do you like puzzle solving" is "do you like starring and tinkering with something for hours just trying to understand a logical reason for its breaking"?. I think that's a better description of what he was going for. Luckily I do legitimately enjoy that.

Even as a kid I was would never let things go that didn't "fit" into my brain's understanding of the world. So I felt well suited for bug hunting once I started doing it. But yeah 90% of my time is spent copying code, finding a missing letter, or meetings/phone calls. To me this is much better than other jobs. But it's not exactly glamours.

Idk what most non-programmers envision programming as, as I honestly couldn't have given someone a remotely accurate description of it before I actually started doing it.

Also no idea what he is talking about solving "new" puzzles. The vast majority of work is already completed by somebody else or at least in a similar manner and can be adapted to your own problem.

I dunno, my friend is an electrician and he said he is constantly solving the problem of how to route the conduit pipe around all the existing stuff in the available space. Every day is a puzzle and he has sent me pics... sometimes progress is less then one foot per hour, after all the bending and planning.

They may not be "inventing" the faucet every day but I wouldn't count tradesman out as not solving problems.

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