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Comment by matthoiland | Hacker News Reader

I love reading things like this that reinforce my belief that I personally know very little about anything. _back to writing CSS for me :)_

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The key to understanding this world is that nearly everybody does these things full time for their own interest. Trying to accumulate this level of expertise on nights & weekends is an express train to burnout. On the other hand if your financial needs are satisfied (worked at FAMANG for a decade while being frugal, doing contracts for 1/3 of the year & being frugal, married a doctor, got into cryptocurrency early, donations if you're anomalously popular) and you're reveling in the joy of self-indulging exploration, learning, and tinkering without having to worry about giving an update at daily standup tomorrow, it's amazing what you can accomplish. Knowledge is cumulative. Within a few years many people could be at this level. This is part of why UBI is so popular within software engineering circles, because you really don't need that many resources to just be in it for the love of the game.

On the other hand having kids is basically anathema to being able to live this life. So you are choosing work (in a broader sense of term than conventionally used) over family.

I'm the father to a 27 year old, step-father to a 31 and 33 year old. I started my journey into audio software when my daughter was about 2 years old and I was a stay-at-home parent. I'm often considered one of the most senior people in audio software development in the world now (a bit of an illusion caused by the invisibility of people inside proprietary development processes, but I'll take it).

I can take you on a deep dive into every aspect of audio software. My kids and my wife did not obstruct that, and if anything, having responsibilities towards them forced me to be even better at the process that got me to where I am today.

Sorry, I should have specified: my post was specifically concerning FOSS development. Of course people inside large companies developing proprietary software can attain a high level of knowledge about whatever field even if they have families, because they're working on it full time over many years and being paid for it.

Although it's unclear, perhaps you are talking about FOSS development (actually looking up Ardour from your profile, yes you definitely are). That's very impressive, then! So you did manage to juggle having a full-time job, FOSS development, and a family?

I was initially financially independent (due to amzn), playing the role of stay-at-home parent and slowly expanding the FLOSS project's role; in about 2008, the FLOSS project became my only source of revenue.

Thanks for posting this. I see kids in my not too distant future and while I personally don't believe this I see lots and lots of comments on the internet saying that having kids basically stops everything else dead in its tracks for ~2 decades.

There are so few people with experiences like yours that it's sometimes hard to not let that get into my head.

So it's refreshing to see a different opinion.

A lot of generalities don't really apply to you if you were one of the two other people building Amazon.com in Bezos' garage: https://www.wired.com/1999/03/bezos-3/

I don't know what I expected, but it certainly wasn't that. Thanks for letting me know. Though I really don't know what to make of this now (if anything).

Maybe see my reply adjacent to yours in this subthread.

Amzn allowed me to (a) be a stay-at-home parent (b) work on a FLOSS project for several (maybe 10) years without needing to generate any revenue.

It did not have any impact on my curiosity or learning process during the journey I've been on for the last 25 years.

The point is the the presence (or absence) of children is not determinative of your ability to deep-dive. Or so I am claiming.

Right! My original quip about children was more about financial constraints than anything. Not trying to shame you or anything, I think using the Amazon windfall to work on FOSS is absolutely the dream and one of the best possible ways you could have contributed to the world.

It's a fair point that being able to tinker on FLOSS while my kid(s) were at school rather than having a full time job and leaving the tinkering for late at night was probably quite beneficial.

Nevertheless, I would still like to claim that kids or not is not determinative of your ability to do the deep dive.

I'd also like to think that some distance in the future, it will be raising my daughter will turn out to have been the best possible way I contributed to the world. This software stuff is, in the end, a distraction for the most part (especially when there are/were already so many options in the particular niche that Ardour occupies).

I think swathes of free time (which sounds like you had at Amazon) with days on end of no meetings or commitments (or childcare) are the key.

I just did 5 months between contracts. The kids were at school for 6 hours a day. It took a good few weeks for the ideas to start flowing and my curiosity and enthusiasm to build, such that I actually started writing code and enjoyed the process.

It’s something I never experienced before with regular holiday leave, where all-day childcare would usually be involved.

It’s only recently I’ve been in a financial position to be able to create free time like this. It was really expensive though, and I’m unlikely to be doing it again for a few years.

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