Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jun8 | Hacker News Reader

Many excellent answers given, but this comment, I think says it all:

"You seem to be a successful programmer, the rest is incremental. Not trying to be a dick, but ... how is your life finance-wise, relationships-wise, health-wise, fun-wise, hobby-wise? Perhaps now is the time to pursue some of those things."

View on HN

I don't really think it's a good answer. To me that comment is the difference between Quora, which aims to be an opinion-based Q&A, and StackOverflow/StackExchange which aim for facts. I know his question was opinion based, but is there a need for that comment. He could very well be a happy and healthy family man who learns new languages as a hobby. And, anyway, who cares? Just answer the question with your thoughts if you have them.

It would be a terrible answer, but it's a fine comment.

I think it's an exceptionally rude comment. There's no way that the fellow is going to find it helpful in any way, and it's seriously demeaning to offer the unasked-for "advice" that their hobby is probably not worth pursuing further, and maybe they should just go do something else instead. If you have to preface your words with "Not trying to be a dick, but..." perhaps you should just leave them in your mouth.

I found the asker's response to be amazingly gracious. I would have been rather rude in return.

Its a pointless comment that is not even specific to the question. You could throw that comment into just about any thread and it will work:

"Just got my hunter to 85, what class should I roll as an alt?" You seem to be a successful Hunter, the rest is incremental. Not trying to be a dick, but ... how is your life finance-wise, relationships-wise, health-wise, fun-wise, hobby-wise? Perhaps now is the time to pursue some of those things.

"just got a raise as a video technician, should i get my car fixed?"...

I agree it's a nice comment, i.e. it's not pointless in that context. The context is the case of a person who knows N related things focused in one areas and asking how/if he should pick up a few more for hobby. Think of the question: "I speak 4 languages fluently, what is the next language I should learn". A similar comment is then applicable.

Exactly. That comment is like the usual "too much time on his hands" insult: http://boingboing.net/2002/02/03/too-much-time-on-his.html

What has that to do with anything? Why assume a stereotypical cave-dwelling nerd because he is interested on different programming languges?

Exactly. I'm far from a cave-dwelling nerd (sometimes I wish I was more of one) and am very interested in different languages and how they can help me view problems in new ways.

I was thinking the other day that studying programming has eaten up into much of my free time, I do it because I love it but I've thought about whether or not there's an issue with working on all day on something and then doing it for fun. Now I have all the above bases covered: Amazing family that I always give priority to over coding for fun, happy with the things I'm working on, reasonable financial health etc..

But I realized that one thing I would like is to one day experience mastery of a skill set. Success is not mastery, and there's no quick path there. I realized that maybe I'll spend less hours playing games, reading novels or just chilling, but I would like to one day have the life experience of having truly mastered a skill, and I think I would gladly give up a few side hobbies, video games, and great novels for that.

   I think says it all

What does it say exactly? The only thing that I can think of is that it illustrates the point that there are some who seem to think they have a window into some else's life based on some trifle found on the Internet.

I disagree. Not everyone is in it for the money and that's sometimes the difference between a decent code monkey and an outstanding developer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com