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What Happened to Lee

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1298 points jgrahamc | 1 comments | 15 Apr 20 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.474s | 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. datenwolf ◴[17 Apr 20 22:37 UTC] No.22903640[source]▶
I'm in the same boat. Sometime in late spring 2018 my productivity plummeted. Same did my activity on StackOverflow.

However I think what's a huge contributing factor is gaining experience. With every structure we come up with, every function and/or abstraction we also build a mental picture of all the possible dependencies it comes with. We see the bigger picture. And we see the same (potential) paths of failure again and again and again…

I found that another favorite activity of mine didn't suffer: Designing electronics. I can still (productively) spend hours on tinkering with SPICE simulations, soldering in-situ projects, and so on.

And recently I also discovered that it's not programming itself that has become harder for me. It is programming in domains I am extremely familiar with that I'm less productive in. If it's in an area I'm not familiar with, things are much easier, because I don't see the big picture yet.