No Longer Coding 'For A Living'...
Dave Shuck has a cool post this morning where he talks about giving his son (his 6 year old son) his first lessons in CF. Dave asked readers to share their first experiences with program which I did in the comments over there. But something hit me as I was typing my comments. It was this line:
Fast forward about 20 years before I started doing it 'for a living' (which is about to end, but that's another story).
I don't typically get too personal here on my blog but I kinda feel like getting this one off my chest. At the end of this month I won't be programming 'for a living' anymore - which basically means my day job will not be writing a lick of code from here on out. Instead I will be doing more process improvement, project management and requirement development type stuff full time. I'm having very mixed feelings about this.
At first I'm disappointed. When I first started tinkering with code at age 8 I really liked it. There is no doubt that figuring out a complex calculation or algorithm provides some sort of strange geeky rush for most of us. That's why we do it and that's why we strive to gain more knowledge. We like what we do. It's rewarding. It's challenging. It's fun. It (mostly) has nothing to do with dealing with 'real people' (yuck).
My next feeling is a bit of relief. The environment that I work in can be rather challenging at times. We don't have complete access to resources all the time. We don't have true 'requirement' development sessions. We don't have dedicated personnel for certain tasks. All of these things can be frustrating to work through. So on one hand I'm relieved, but I'm also going to sorely miss doing this.
I'm not sure what the future holds for me. I love coding so much that I've convinced myself that I will stay active and keep working on small personal projects and reading blogs, etc. But I'm worried that that's not enough. Can I really stay 'in the loop' without doing this day in, day out 40+ hours a week? Only time will tell. Regardless, it's been a fun ride.
RSS
I know how you feel though and I myself have applied for a few jobs here lately that don't include a lick of coding. I have the same concerns and feelings you do on the subject. I really love what I do, will that change if I find another "day job"?? At any rate keep us posted, and congrats!
Ryan
To be honest, nothing against my job, but 99% of the interesting stuff (i.e. blog-worthy) I write about has nothing to do with my day to day job duties....except if Bernie is reading this, in which case my job is incredibly interesting and engaging.
Sure you can. In my last position I was the IT Director of a large day club/night club/beach club/bar & restaurant on the east coast. I was originally hired to maintain their two web sites, but the day I began my boss was called to active duty in the Coast Guard. My position was shifted by default, managing their extensive network, managing their AV Staff, supporting the core business, plus the owner's radio station which was also on the property. It became a 60-70 hr work week, 50 weeks a year (with them calling me every day of my two weeks of vacation as well.)
In that time I still learned true CFC development, CF MX 7, MySQL administration, Fusebox, Mach-II, and a ton of other stuff, mostly on my lunch hour or my own time. Why? Because I loved it. I have no doubt that you'll stay 'in the loop.'
Once I get caught up with the new gig, my plan is to try to get involved with some of the open source work that's out there.
To keep up though: If you dedicate some of your down time to an (or several) open source projects, you'll be able to keep up with the latest stuff and get your fix.
Even if you just do side projects on the weekend that'd probably be enough. How much of your current day to day "for a living" coding is learning something new anyway?
Thanks for pointing that out Rob. You're right, the "fun" stuff is the stuff that I do at home at night and on the weekend. The day to day stuff can get repetitive (especially user issues - yuck!).
That cracked me the hell up. :)
Congrats Todd on the opportunity -- I was in the same boat you're in a few years ago. I had (and still have to some extent) the same concerns, but you DO find ways to stay dangerous, especially if (as others have indicated) you love it. It's important to stay low to the ground with this stuff anyway if you're going to effectively manage. I can attest that doing the "fun" projects at home becomes increasingly difficult with every kid you have (3 for me) but I suppose I can always take Dave's approach and just put them to work :)
I certainly can empathize. I wrote my last line of code "professionally" a little over 4 years ago. At the time, I was juggling management and coding responsibilities, dragging out a transition from development to management much longer than it should have taken.
That said, even though I'm not the one doing the coding anymore (I have a really inspiring staff), I still do try to keep up as much as possible. As everyone has already suggested, there are several ways you can do this, depending on how much free time you have available.
Me personally, I keep up through reading CF related blogs, participating in forums, user groups, etc. as well as writing an occasional blog entry. I do find that I have a lot less time to devote to projects I've spent a lot of time on in the past, though, such as forum posts, co-administering cflib with Ray, and running the cfcdev mailing list.
One thing that's really funny is how much you forget when you aren't programming in CF on a day to day basis. I'm constantly amused at how often I have to refer to my own book to looks something up that I used to know like the back of my hand!
In any case, hang in there. Staying in the loop won't be as hard as you may think.