Mine was pretty swell. Worked hard, came home and cooked with the Mrs.
What did you do today?
Thanks. I assume that people who say that have never had to do software development. I used to be a programming tutor at a local college. The "Intro to programming and logic" class counted as a math class and was also required for most business majors (because IT is a core part of any business, manager types need to at least have some idea of what a programmer does. The class would start packed at the beginning of the semester. 30, sometimes 40 people. After the first week, 1 or 2 people would drop each week, sometimes each class until there were maybe 10 left by the end of the drop/add period. I prefer to say that computer programming is "challenging" but it is most certainly a difficult job. There are people who will never be able to do work in that field because they don't think that way. I know I come home completely drained and exhausted every day just from sitting for 8 hours and thinking. As a bonus, I type really fast after years of development work.
On the other hand, there are people who could never be a photographer or an artist because they are so divorced from their emotions that they can't convey scenes, images, or compositions that invoke anything for the viewer. The techniques can be trained, yes, but the skill takes so much practice that by the time you're done with your degree, you can not only tell a trained artist from an untrained one, you can tell someone who is trained but has no feel or talent for it.
Regardless, if it makes you happy....
Thanks. I assume that people who say that have never had to do software development. I used to be a programming tutor at a local college. The "Intro to programming and logic" class counted as a math class and was also required for most business majors (because IT is a core part of any business, manager types need to at least have some idea of what a programmer does. The class would start packed at the beginning of the semester. 30, sometimes 40 people. After the first week, 1 or 2 people would drop each week, sometimes each class until there were maybe 10 left by the end of the drop/add period. I prefer to say that computer programming is "challenging" but it is most certainly a difficult job. There are people who will never be able to do work in that field because they don't think that way. I know I come home completely drained and exhausted every day just from sitting for 8 hours and thinking. As a bonus, I type really fast after years of development work.
On the other hand, there are people who could never be a photographer or an artist because they are so divorced from their emotions that they can't convey scenes, images, or compositions that invoke anything for the viewer. The techniques can be trained, yes, but the skill takes so much practice that by the time you're done with your degree, you can not only tell a trained artist from an untrained one, you can tell someone who is trained but has no feel or talent for it.
Regardless, if it makes you happy....
I was taking courses for computer science with a focus on software engineering. I had to drop my program due to family issues. I can honestly say that I have a passion for it, I've been doing pet projects in my spare time after work for the last few weeks. With that being said, it is a mindboggling experience to try and wrap my head around some of these professional engineers and the software they create.
I have spent tens of hours trying to figure out an error, dug through hundreds of stack posts, only to find out that the solution was nowhere close to being intuitive. Programming has taught me that I am not smart, and as much as I think I like math and obscure data sets, my intellect pales in comparison to some of these people.
I still desire to break into the field professionally, but I think for right now I am comfortable taking a backseat approach to this. I want to learn as much as possible before I go to face off with the rest of my generation who also thought they wanted to be developers.
I'm currently at the two hour mark in a four hour long video on Python. After smashing my head against a wall for three months learning C++, Python is a breath of fresh air. I'm at a mental block, however. It is akin to a writer's block where they can't think of anything to write about. I have all this knowledge of programming, but I don't know a damned thing worth my time to create. Do you find yourself in the same predicament? I imagine no, because you do this for a living working on corporate projects so I assume when you are off work the last thing you want to do is a home project.
I was taking courses for computer science with a focus on software engineering. I had to drop my program due to family issues. I can honestly say that I have a passion for it, I've been doing pet projects in my spare time after work for the last few weeks. With that being said, it is a mindboggling experience to try and wrap my head around some of these professional engineers and the software they create.
I have spent tens of hours trying to figure out an error, dug through hundreds of stack posts, only to find out that the solution was nowhere close to being intuitive. Programming has taught me that I am *not* smart, and as much as I think I like math and obscure data sets, my intellect pales in comparison to some of these people.
I still desire to break into the field professionally, but I think for right now I am comfortable taking a backseat approach to this. I want to learn as much as possible before I go to face off with the rest of my generation who also thought they wanted to be developers.
I'm currently at the two hour mark in a four hour long video on Python. After smashing my head against a wall for three months learning C++, Python is a breath of fresh air. I'm at a mental block, however. It is akin to a writer's block where they can't think of anything to write about. I have all this knowledge of programming, but I don't know a damned thing worth my time to create. Do you find yourself in the same predicament? I imagine no, because you do this for a living working on corporate projects so I assume when you are off work the last thing you want to do is a home project.
The best way to break into the field without experience or an "official" education is to volunteer or intern. This is true in any field, btw.
I have no problems coming up with things to develop for myself. I have a raspberry pi that I'm turning into a smart station with it's own sensors and everything. It's already a media server, air play relay, google assistant with voice recognition. I have to get time to get back to it though. I also have a page I've made for myself that is basically devoted to my local weather because I was fed up with all the weather sites taking forever to load just to ask you for your location and then take forever to load again only to show you some complicated nonsense that you have to learn how to read - so I made my own weather page. Right now, I'm in the middle of revamping and finishing a site for myself for playing dungeons and dragons after sitting on it for almost a year - it's a combat tracker, monster manual, encounter generator dice roller, table roller... I have other plans for it but there's where I'm stopping myself for now. And that doesn't include all the time I spend making maps and assets for my campaign.
I work mostly in C#, razor, mvc, web api 2, javascript, typescript, sql for myself. I do all that and occasionally dive into Visual Basic at work and am almost always working in asp.net or some api or another.
Programming is something I do for fun too but not when my brain is mush. I'd rather just sit down and figure out something on my network hard drive that I haven't watched yet, clean house, work on my truck or garden or other projects I have kicking around.
And somewhere along the way, I'll finish my darkroom (needs a sink and vent) and then get back into photography a lot more.
I'm not even going to mention the art/graphics things I do. I just made my players a 54 page character book because I got tired of them trying to fit everything onto a single character sheet and then forgetting what they wrote down because they didn't have enough room to make it make sense.
The best way to break into the field without experience or an "official" education is to volunteer or intern. This is true in any field, btw.
I have no problems coming up with things to develop for myself. I have a raspberry pi that I'm turning into a smart station with it's own sensors and everything. It's already a media server, air play relay, google assistant with voice recognition. I have to get time to get back to it though. I also have a page I've made for myself that is basically devoted to my local weather because I was fed up with all the weather sites taking forever to load just to ask you for your location and then take forever to load again only to show you some complicated nonsense that you have to learn how to read - so I made my own weather page. Right now, I'm in the middle of revamping and finishing a site for myself for playing dungeons and dragons after sitting on it for almost a year - it's a combat tracker, monster manual, encounter generator dice roller, table roller... I have other plans for it but there's where I'm stopping myself for now. And that doesn't include all the time I spend making maps and assets for my campaign.
I work mostly in C#, razor, mvc, web api 2, javascript, typescript, sql for myself. I do all that and occasionally dive into Visual Basic at work and am almost always working in asp.net or some api or another.
Programming is something I do for fun too but not when my brain is mush. I'd rather just sit down and figure out something on my network hard drive that I haven't watched yet, clean house, work on my truck or garden or other projects I have kicking around.
And somewhere along the way, I'll finish my darkroom (needs a sink and vent) and then get back into photography a lot more.
I'm not even going to mention the art/graphics things I do. I just made my players a 54 page character book because I got tired of them trying to fit everything onto a single character sheet and then forgetting what they wrote down because they didn't have enough room to make it make sense.
Wow, what a day. I had somebody tell me once that no job is intrinsically hard. What makes a job hard are the people you have to put up with on a daily basis. Asshats and the like are just what is needed to mess everything up. You sound like you have an interesting workplace, I wish you luck on your new project.