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What Happened to Lee

(wired.com)
1298 points jgrahamc | 1 comments | 15 Apr 20 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.245s | source
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rubicon33 ◴[15 Apr 20 20:42 UTC] No.22882787[source]▶
Terrifying.

As a software engineer, shit like this scares me. I've felt like I'm on a steady, slow, decline for the last ~4 years.

Is it just burnout? Do I need a new hobby?

I used to love programming... Spent 12 hours a day jamming on it. Now, I struggle to keep my mind on a line of code for more than 5 minutes.

At what point is it just burnout, or at what point is it something more? That's what's terrifying to me. I imagine that was a challenge for those close to Lee.

We just know so little about the human body. Our ability to easily query the state of the body, to assess which functional components are working, and which need help, is dismal.

I just hope that Lee, in whatever state he is in, isn't suffering.

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1. nickm12 ◴[16 Apr 20 06:23 UTC] No.22886691[source]▶
I'm a 43 year old software engineer. I definitely do not have the ability to focus on coding (and mathematics) the way I did 20 years ago. It's difficult to describe why exactly, but it's sort of like my ability to reason formally is more prone to breaks in concentration and lapses. I can still do what needs to be done but it takes longer and I have less patience, especially for bit-twiddling.

At the same time, I think I'm a better programmer than I ever was. The programming abstractions I design are better for years of work with different systems. Also, not being able to fit everything in my head as easily helps me write code that is more modular with simpler pieces.

So I feel like I've lost the ability to do the trickiest stuff, but that is a small part of coding and I'll take the skills in overall design any day.