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Discussion on: Dealing with programmer's burnout

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paolomilano profile image
PaoloMilano

Uh, no. I program because it pays the bills and it's the best career I could get into later in life. Pretty sure I wouldn't spend my day at a desk solving someone else's problems for fun.I also know 0 programmers who do not make at least a reasonable salary with what they do. So much for making sweeping generalizations about why people end up doing what they do.

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pancy profile image
Pan Chasinga

Thanks for the comment.

How do you know you aren't making generalization? I could say that I've known many who's programming while working minimum-wage jobs, in-between jobs and can barely pay rents. A few I know is contributing greatly to open source and has thousands of other developers using/following his work (maybe including you?).

If most people are writing code just to pay bills, you won't see as many working on open source projects for free. So with this solid evidence, I will have to disagree.

There's your world, then there's other worlds outside of that.

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paolomilano profile image
PaoloMilano

I can easily do a search on glassdoor.com to know that no programmer (at least in developed nations) goes hungry. Now what's your evidence for asserting that people get into programming to solve puzzles and not just to get a decent job?

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pancy profile image
Pan Chasinga

Paolo, what made you so mad about programming with fun? Don't you at least enjoy yourself writing code?

You can't just do a search on glassdoor to get the base salaries and assume all programmers get at least that. Do you only refer to paid programmers as programmers? Do you consider teenagers programming at home as programmers? How about single mothers learning code?

I also find your exclusion of developing nations moot. People all over the world are programming, and even many of exciting things are being built in developing nations.

Altogether you have missed my point completely. Nobody is asserting that people are getting into programming just to solve puzzles. Every serious programmer wants a decent paying job, but that doesn't mean she is doing it without the slightest love in the craft. Nobody can ever get good without the heart in the right place, and without getting good you can't get a paying job.

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mohr023 profile image
Matheus Mohr

I definitely can't talk about how it works where you live, but I can definitely mention my country (Brazil) as a good example of how you can find programmers making little money. It's actually a regular joke on how little money we make as devs, considering lots of other careers that require a lot less effort.

As with anything, you can't generalize in any way, not for saying programmers make lots of money, neither for saying programmers starve.

Also, I'm one of the people that actually spend my time solving people's problems for fun, I like solving problems of any kind, and I'm damn good at it, so again, don't think your reality is "the one".