Hacker News Reader

Comment by transmit101 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about novels, but finishing a piece of music is a truly arduous task. I've never found another activity which is so deeply challenging: forcing you to confront your own ideas of what you're trying to produce, how good you expect to make it, your own self-confidence and self-belief, stamina, you name it.

Coding is pretty straight-forward in comparison.

I don't doubt that writing novels is similarly tough (possibly tougher)

View on HN

> Coding is pretty straight-forward in comparison.

Really? I suppose it depends on what you mean. Sometimes "coding" can be akin to writing a single bar in someone else's composition. Other times you're writing a whole opera yourself, from scratch. They're two different ball parks.

I find coding elicits the same things you've mentioned about composing.

Interesting, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's very different for different people.

For me, coding comes very naturally indeed. Next, writing, then music, and finally visual art which I find next-to impossible to master. :-)

And when I say "naturally", I have no doubt that there is a direct correlation between what comes most "naturally" to me, and what I've spent the most time over the years practicing.

That's exactly how I feel about drawing a portrait of a friend or family member. I realize that it's a very small task compared to writing a novel, but after getting the initial sketch done, it gets a lot harder. Even after many revisions, I keep finding little things that are off. After a while, I start doubting my own judgement about how light or dark a given area should be. At that point it's very easy to walk away from an 80% finished work, procrastinate indefinitely and then start working on something easier like a plant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com