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I'm Not Participating in This Year's Advent of Code For Very Good Reasons
(www.jasonscheirer.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Programming
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Thank u Jason, very cool !!
Seriously though, good for you I guess? Not sure why you're grandstanding about it.
Meanwhile, I'm doing it the way I have in years past: as a fun set of puzzles that let me write code I enjoy in a language I like, because I do actually enjoy writing code, and only until my real-life schedule no longer allows.
Nobody's saving the world by posting on their personal blogs about how they're bravely and boldly not doing a series of optional advent-calendar puzzles.
I'm not "Grandstanding" so much as "resisting"; I've been peer pressured into participating for half a decade. It's always made me feel bad. There's no shame in opting out.
I mean, is "other people are having fun" really something that demands a resistance?
Or could you, perhaps, just not do it and not care whether that makes you "cool" or not?
It's like that bit from Community: "wear it because of them, don't wear it because of them — either way, it's for them."
Just be you, without having to have some sort of faux "resistance" to justify yourself.
Sometimes communicating feelings and sentiments with others can be rather meaningful for some. Reading someone else’s articulation of thoughts and feelings that you share or resonate with but haven’t formed a clear picture of can be rather useful.
Yeah but we could probably do it without saying someone else’s hobbies are “pointless” and “fucking stupid”. I’m all for expressing our feelings. But maybe do it without yucking my yum and patronizing me. You don’t get to be the arbiter of what I enjoy.
I don’t think that was said. The whole thing was a subjective description of their reasoning. Couched objective reasoning in an attempt to justify themselves, clearly, but also from a clearly subjective and emotional perspective.
I feel a working fallacy in conversations like this (maybe amongst tech people in particular) is a presumption of absolute objectivity. Their opinion makes sense to them and others who understand (the voting is fairly split) but is also equally inapplicable to others.
Instead of fighting over what’s “true”, the more interesting discussion IMO is mapping out where boundaries and spaces are and what the different perspectives are. In this case, the chief boundary seems to me to be between “youthful hunger” and “more mature/experienced broader outlook on what the ‘craft’ is”.
Oh I don’t have an opinion on what is true. I love doing work outside of work. I enjoy writing programs for myself. I enjoy code challenges. I enjoy working on cars. I enjoy fixing things. It’s more the “doing work outside of work is fucking stupid” that is in big bold letters, as well as “it’s pointless” in big bold letters. That just comes off in a way that gets under my skin.
I will say that none of my friends or coworkers have even mentioned AoC. I’m not pressured by anyone into programming outside of work. Some of my friends and I have worked on projects together, but only because we wanted to and enjoyed it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a hunger to learn and improve. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not wanting to write code after work. Sometimes after a particularly challenging project or a release that went south and required me staying til 23:00 on a Friday, I don’t even want to think about code. Or problem solving for that matter.
I just think letting people enjoy what they enjoy is typically a good policy. And discussion isn’t being invited when you’re essentially telling someone their hobby is wrong. If it were framed as “here is why I don’t enjoy AoC, I think it would have been more welcoming of discussion. The way it’s currently phrased is like crossing your arms in a conversation.
I do think the divide between people who just really enjoy programming, and people who just see it as a job is interesting. I’ve definitely had discussions about that with colleagues. None of us have told the others that their preferences are stupid.
That’s just my two cents, though. I don’t like discussing something with someone who comes from a place of hostility instead of open mindedness.
Totally fair!
From the OP’s comments it seemed that they felt like there was pressure in their environment, in which case the relative aggressiveness makes a bit of sense. Otherwise maybe they were just trying to be edgy or misread their environment with some misplaced priorities.
Either way, I was personally happy to read it as a personal rant and take away whatever made sense to me. A more polite and logical rant would have been nice and better though, for sure, except that that’s also harder to write and can prevent people from just sharing their thoughts in a “raw format”.
Oh I agree. I’m sorry if I came off argumentative or aggressive myself. I think the difference is the language used. The way this article was written plays on outrage to garner attention and potentially evoke discussion. If it had been framed as “I won’t be doing AoC, and here’s why: I don’t like doing this thing, so doing it without getting paid doesn’t sit well with me” instead if “I don’t like doing this thing, so anybody who uses it as more than just a job is stupid”, it could have led to some interesting and fun discussion.
I’ve got coworkers who just see developing as a job. Which is cool. I’m glad they can be good at it without being incredibly interested in it. But also for some of us it isn’t just how we get paid. And some devs are just doing it for fun. None of my coworkers have even mentioned AoC. Nobody at work pressures me into coding outside of my job. The only time I’ve been pressured to learn is when I ignored my teams requirement of “equivalent to one hour a week” pluralsight training. Which I missed for the majority of a year as I didn’t want to waste dev time doing training. I love that it’s provided free for every dev, but turning off project mode is challenging for me.
So I think the discussion could and should be had. It’s an interesting topic to me. I just think it could be done with a little less aggression. Or maybe it was written that way to drive views. Idk, but either way I’m just getting weary with all of the outright negativity towards those who enjoy different things than someone.
All good!
I hope you don’t mind my asking; what’s the nature of the peer pressure to participate you’re facing?
While grandstanding might be a bit odd, it seems to me the broader point is about tech culture in general and what else it could be.
The point about the dark third place resonated with me for instance, where fruitful and fulfilling third places can be quite hard to build and find IMO.
I think the author's idea of painting it as a dark third place is way off base (pretty much every point seems off base). Is reading a book a dark third place because you didn't write the book?
Third places are where you might have a conversation about the fun puzzle you solved, they aren't the puzzle.
Well they state elsewhere in the post, rightly or wrongly, that they don't think these are fun puzzles but instead promote a problematic junior dev ego thing. Beyond that the main thrust of their reasoning seems to be the whole developer "culture" of "needing" to do work outside of work. If you come to oppose this and don't find the problems/solutions edifying, then "fun puzzle" is no longer an apt description and I think it makes a lot of sense to see the whole thing as relatively "dark" compared to what a nice or fulfilling "third place" can be.
It's not even a third place.
The idea that these puzzles which people are obviously enjoying are contributing to a poor culture among developers is not supported by his arguments. The author should simply make their case about the poor culture instead of shoe horning in a poor example of it backed with contrived reasons.
If you don't like the puzzles, ignore them. Same as any leisure activity, don't force it. There's nothing wrong with not participating. The author's idea that there is something wrong with not participating is his problem.
Well, if you don’t like their reasoning or rejection of AoC … you can ignore it too. I think you’re taking this a bit too seriously, it was never intended as a grand thesis on dev culture. It is a statement of a relatively specific sentiment that some agree or resonate with and some don’t. You’re looking for logic when there’s just opinion.
Yeah but there’s a difference between saying, I don’t like JavaScript and here’s why” and “if you’re a JavaScript dev you are the worst kind of person”.
On the contrary, my point is that his proclamations shouldn't be taken seriously at all.