Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday May 04 2019, @10:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the coding-for-a-living dept.

There is often pressure inside Software development for Software developers to code outside of work hours. Coding is considered a passion for some, but others don’t think this way. They are more than happy to not code in their spare time. This is OK.

Meetup groups, side-projects, coding quizzes, side-hustles, developing websites for friends and family. Improving your coding skills takes time, effort, discipline and sacrifice. But is it really necessary? That is for you to decide.

There is no doubt that there is importance to setting goals. It helps to see where you are going and to have something you are working towards. Being the best coder isn’t everyone’s goal.

People often feel peer pressure to code outside of hours, to stay competitive and to be the best. If someone is making you feel this way, you can remind yourself that it is perfectly OK to only code at work. Some people might even argue that doing too much can have diminishing returns…

[...] In short, it is perfectly OK to have a life outside of work. Many people hack their schedules according to their own goals and interests, which may or may not include coding. If you think this post could help someone out there, please share it around!


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:06AM (4 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Sunday May 05 2019, @04:06AM (#839083) Journal

    Money that you did not have to spend is not taxed, where money you earned is.

    That's when I consider economies of scale to decide whether to make it myself or buy one.

    I am not going to make plumbing stuff on the lathe if I can buy the fitting at home depot.

    But I may well spend a lot of time making unique LED lighting fixtures, as I am very picky about how they are made. The ones I see have way too many failure points and they usually run them too hard. I build one and I expect it to work from then on with no further adoo from me. Hermetically sealed. Silicone. All connections exposed to weather soldered. All feed currents limited, etc.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:09PM (3 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday May 05 2019, @12:09PM (#839183)

    While I appreciate and agree with the sentiment, and much of what the market sells you is indeed utter crap, silicone isn't as good a seal as a properly engineered injection molded solution, there are many things that you just can't do in a home shop that a 10 million quantity production line can churn our for $0.04 per copy. It seems that these days the real trick is in finding quality products on the market, and often that's just a matter of buying many and seeing which ones last.

    Antiques have value not only because they have been "preserved" for so long, but often because they lasted that long on their own without special care. The market has always sold crap, stuff that lasts a very short time, but of the hundreds of pieces of crap that get purchased and used up, the ones that last stand out, and in a collection of stuff it's easy to point to the 30+ year old things and lament: they just don't make 'em like that anymore... truth more often is: they didn't make many of 'em like that back then, either.

    What I'm growing to resent about my local labor market are the unskilled who build a "premium" business around something like washing houses. They employ "go-see quote writers" to go out and float 10x fair rate prices to see who bites, and since it takes about 10% of the time of a job to do a quote, they can write 100 quotes for every sucker who actually pays (assuming one quote writer per actual work team, I think some of these operations actually have 5-10 quote writers per team, 500-1000 quotes per actual job). Then, one sucker pays $3000 to have their 2500 square foot house washed - the team uses $1000 in tools and knocks out the job in 4 hours, netting $500 per hour for their actual labor on the first job, $750 on later jobs - most of which goes to pay for the "free quote" writers' time and mileage. It's easy enough to say "no" to a $3000 quote, but the fact that there are more of these premium idiots out there than honest working people leaves the rest of the market open to think they can demand $75 per hour doing stuff like scrubbing a wall and be doing people a favor. So, as a homeowner, that leaves you with the option of first having to sift through 9 super-premium idiots to find a slightly honest laborer (and the super-premium idiots are much easier to find, they can afford to advertise...) and then your slightly honest laborer might show up with a two man team, charging $600 to $1200 for a 4 hour no-skill job, but don't expect them to do little things like clean up messes they make or carry insurance, the $3000+ companies barely do that. At least the cheaper guys have decent availability once you find them, they're usually living on ~$30K per year, so they only need to work about 50-100 4 hour jobs per year, 1 or 2 per week - not a bad life for them.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @09:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 05 2019, @09:06PM (#839363)

      Couple of quibbles:

      silicone isn't as good a seal as a properly engineered injection molded solution

      I don't think GP spoke of bathroom sealant. One can purchase two-part formula relatively inexpensively, and degas in a home-made vacuum, to get the same quality as 10M run of injection molded. If the form isn't as smooth on the outside because of form quality, that doesn't impact function which is what OP specifically prioritized.

      So whle it's true that

      there are many things that you just can't do in a home shop that a 10 million quantity production line can churn our for $0.04 per copy

      it's also true that a competent home producer can, with junkyard parts, make 10M run quality pieces at a per-result cost comparable to MSRP. Most people don't repair their radios, TVs, monitors, etc, and wouldn't make their own lights, but on this board there are folks who think that's fun, and getting a result that's to one's own design means - if successful - getting exactly what was wanted (which might not be what will be wanted next week, or after an unforeseen failure which would've been caught in a 10m run's initial sample check, but...).

      It seems that these days the real trick is in finding quality products on the market, and often that's just a matter of buying many and seeing which ones last.

      That is one trick! A good one. Others include buying used (as you pointed out later), repairing, reducing unnecessary need, sharing and/or borrowing, and renting.

      Antiques have value not only(...)

      Check out the term Survivor Bias.

      "go-see quote writers"

      Wow. Thanks for describing this scam. So sketchy. I have gotten this kind of laughable quote through the mailbox, but never ran the math as you have to see what it systemically must mean. Thanks for explaining, very very interesting.

    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday May 06 2019, @04:10PM (1 child)

      by acid andy (1683) on Monday May 06 2019, @04:10PM (#839671) Homepage Journal

      Antiques have value not only because they have been "preserved" for so long, but often because they lasted that long on their own without special care. The market has always sold crap, stuff that lasts a very short time, but of the hundreds of pieces of crap that get purchased and used up, the ones that last stand out, and in a collection of stuff it's easy to point to the 30+ year old things and lament: they just don't make 'em like that anymore... truth more often is: they didn't make many of 'em like that back then, either.

      Whilst this is undoubtedly a factor, my usual experience when replacing (or more often witnessing someone else replacing) an old item with a modern equivalent, I find over and over again that there is nothing available on the current market that even approaches the build quality of the older item, regardless of price. It seems to be a combination of the process of incrementally increasing profit margins by eating away at product quality, an increase in the use of plastics in most areas of manufacturing where metal or timber had been in the past, a massive increase in mail order purchases meaning people can't examine the product before buying, and soulless, homogeneous big businesses replacing the independent craftsman that took pleasure and great pride in producing a beautiful piece of work.

      --
      If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 06 2019, @05:03PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday May 06 2019, @05:03PM (#839698)

        I find over and over again that there is nothing available on the current market that even approaches the build quality of the older item, regardless of price

        All too often true - I have a blender from the 1960s, the chromed base must weigh 20 pounds, and while the motor isn't as powerful as new blenders, it is built with so much more safety margin in the strength and tolerances that it should outlast 3+ generations of newer blenders.

        Cars from the 1950s were built with 1/4" thick body panels - while there are obvious downsides to this, the upsides (repairability, damage resistance) are just not available in modern cars.

        incrementally increasing profit margins

        WalMart exemplifies this in spades. I only buy motor oil there anymore, but I used to buy the occasional article of clothing or home goods - because you could see the good quality for price right there on the rack. What I found was: if you go back after a couple of years, they still carry something that looks like that good quality good price product you remember, but it's not the same, it has been "cost optimized" at the supplier and is now a tissue-paper simulacrum of what you bought last time: same branding, same price, bigger profit AND shorter service life: retail's one and only dream.

        timber had been in the past

        Old-growth timber basically doesn't exist anymore - it's about 0.01x as available, and 200x as expensive as it was 100 years ago. "New wood" isn't the same, it's still a good raw material for many things, but it's just not the same.

        a massive increase in mail order purchases meaning people can't examine the product before buying

        I think this has a tremendous impact, and I wish that something like blockchain brand reputation building would catch on because that could make global mail-order sourcing even better than in-person shopping used to be. As things are, yeah, it's worse than a flea market.

        and soulless, homogeneous big businesses replacing the independent craftsman

        That has been going on since before I was born (1960s), and until people are ready to pay the differential cost, probably 3x+ for most "comparable" products, the world will continue supplying them what they demand: cheap crap.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]