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Comment by arctangent | Hacker News Reader

"I think I also tend to pick off the lower level work because most of my original ideas are usually too weird for a professional setting."

I'd like to see some clarification on this. A lot of the work I do (inside a large organisation) seems to involve inventive approaches to problems. Maybe not like writing new web servers, but certainly the kind of non-routine stuff that keeps a hacker happy. I don't (often) do this just for fun - there's simply not enough time to solve problems the boring way.

"Professionally though, inspiration is for amateurs and I just do my work."

I'd also like to see some clarification on this. Is Zed saying that it's wrong to take a novel approach to one's work? Or that maybe it's better to just do things the way you're told and save the creative juices for personal endeavours? I might just be mis-reading this completely. Any help much appreciated...

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I try really hard to get things done at work, sometimes that means doing shit work so someone else can have a good time coding something interesting. That's all there is to it. That doesn't mean I don't try to do the shit work in an efficient novel way, it just means what I'm willing to work on isn't necessarily glamorous.

As for the second comment, I'm just saying that if you have to wait around for inspiration before you can do anything then you're just an amateur. I may not be as into what I do without inspiration, but in my day job I can just do what I need without waiting around for a muse to strike me with Thor's hammer. I find people who walk around screaming that they "MUST BE PASSIONATE!" are either deluded, stupid, or just prima donnas who can't sit down and do the damn job. Personally I'd take someone objective and little critical over some passionate Yes-Man.

Now, that's at work, where usually I'm just slinging code for someone else to make money off of and my interest is really only in doing my job well, not in what I'm doing.

It seems like success as a programmer (or at least Internet fame) requires doing a lot of side projects. Do you ever find that doing the shit work at work saps your interest for side projects? Like if you have to look at another line of code you'll scream?

I don't use the same language and platform at home that I do at work. That's how you stay sane. That and I play a lot of guitar which is way more fun and makes me happy.

I think that it's easy to say when you have other things in your life (i.e. hobby, side projects) that satisfy this "feel inspiration" requirement. This is not true for everybody. If you can't find time for side projects or an hobby is it too much to ask for a work where you feel inspired/that you inspire other people? Personally, I think not.

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