alt Hacker NewsI mostly find programming fun, I’ve been doing it most of my life, but I will admit that engineering can be pretty agonizing. I enjoy the stuff, I enjoy the algorithmic stuff, and I enjoy implementing the math and algorithms, but that’s only about half of any programming job I have had.
I derive zero enjoyment from Kubernetes configs, or Terraform, or fucking around with log settings, or screwing around with all the knobs for Kafka. That stuff is agonizing.
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> I derive zero enjoyment from Kubernetes configs, or Terraform, or fucking around with log settings, or screwing around with all the knobs for Kafka. That stuff is agonizing.
The click for me was thinking in terms of outcomes and system dynamics. So I make sure to get a good understanding of the final state. Tweaking without a goal is just playing around, or joyless work if you do not enjoy the process.
Yeah - those are two very different roles and are separate job functions at a lot of places (depending on org size). I do both at my company.
I've never had that specific heads-down "programming" role where I can just read specs and write PRs all day, it's always been full-stack for me - which I personally enjoy... But the config / plumbing has always felt like a bit of drudgery.
At the end of the day that feels like the stuff that we do IN ORDER TO write code, so it doesn't really feel like the main event — so to speak.