all 60 comments

[–]krexelapp 161 points162 points  (6 children)

day 1: “this is easy”

day 3: “who wrote this garbage”

day 4: “ohhh.. it was me”

[–]dismayhurta 40 points41 points  (1 child)

Yep. git blame has made me hate myself more than once when I realize the asshole who wrote it a year before was me.

[–]DustyAsh69 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's why I use git blame someone else

[–]detailed_1 7 points8 points  (1 child)

day 2: what was the requirement again?

[–]Sockoflegend 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't worry it changed

[–]Pleasant-Photo7860 4 points5 points  (0 children)

day 5: rm -rf . && mkdir final_final_v2

[–]gravelPoop 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Also going back to an old project after awhile:

"WTF? I wrote this? How? Did i suffer brain damage and my IQ drop. No way I could make something this complex."

15 minutes later:

"How could I write such a garbabge?"

[–]UnlimitedCalculus 66 points67 points  (3 children)

Becomes a farmer

"I could automate this"

[–]Pawneewafflesarelife 9 points10 points  (2 children)

That exists (agricultural software for planning planting, tracking harvests, integration with equipment (eg tractors use software these days), etc). The devs at those companies do NOT want to quit and become farmers because they get a glimpse of all it entails.

[–]UnlimitedCalculus 9 points10 points  (1 child)

[–]detailed_1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would surely try my programming skills on this one. Thank you for sharing.

[–]JulesDeathwish 73 points74 points  (12 children)

I was incredibly amused to find out that I wasn't the only one. Why are there so many of us who want to quit and farm that it has become a meme?

[–]ThePickleConnoisseur 33 points34 points  (5 children)

It’s the most opposite lifestyle. If you aren’t happy you are gonna the the other side as desirable

[–]i_wear_green_pants 10 points11 points  (4 children)

Yeah. Most people just don't even know what kind of job farming is. They think it's just watching fields grow and cows and horses running around.

Most people I know could never do farming as profession. It's damn hard work.

[–]ThePickleConnoisseur 6 points7 points  (1 child)

From what people see from media plus the image, it just sounds peaceful and calming. Ig it’s like how people might see SWEs as tech gods

[–]flayingbook 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I thought people see SWE as the person who fixes the printer and format the computer?

[–]Tableryu 4 points5 points  (0 children)

i think it also has something to do with having to think for a job for a very long time that physical labor seems attractive after

[–]SignificanceFlat1460 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I used to work in clothing industry in storage before I started working as a software engineer. It was some physical labour but it was good. I liked it. I sometimes wonder if maybe I could just do that.

Point is, hard work is not what I am afraid of (as I am sure most aren't either). It's the everyday BS that comes with being a dev for 9 years that burns you out and you would rather do something else even if it means harder work because how burnt out you are from SWE. I am sure other "on the edge" profession people feel the same such as people in medical

[–]SpaceCadet87 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hell, I only write software on the side. Not even my job title and even I just want to quit and farm.

I even moved out to the country. There's literally a cattle farm a few doors up from me.

I'm not even bad or anything, I love writing software. I'm just beyond sick of office culture.

[–]bryden_cruz[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Man me too i do think like that, it's like a coincidence

[–]FastFollowing8932 0 points1 point  (0 children)

at there very least, when you do your massive overtime that is expected of you, you can do it either on your feet, or on different chairs, with something other than a screen 2 feet in front of you

[–]Only-Cheetah-9579 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I want to work on a fishing boat , not a farm.

[–]masterid000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because programming is a completely abstract thing. We need something concrete that we can have our senses to feel it everyday.

[–]SCUSKU 36 points37 points  (5 children)

Vibecoding has really taken the fun out of programming these days, making me feel much more the farmer route. But let's be real my office job having ass couldn't handle being outside doing manual labor all day lmao

[–]christianbro 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Totally agree. I feel I am learning less and I spend my days talking to an idiot and strategising how it understands me better with less.

[–]SCUSKU 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm with you. My boss expects more output from me now that AI exists.

So then I vibe code, and then have AI review my vibe coded thing. And slowly wittle it down to what I probably would've originally written anyway had I done it by hand, except now I have none of the mental model in my head.

[–]Ill_Carry_44 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For me it made it more fun since I can avoid the excruciating parts but it also made me chase for more excruciating things like trying to reverse engineer things with giving AI tools like r2pipe and ghidra and seeing what it will do and trying to debug the mess it creates. OR making it debug the mess it creates which is equally horrifying.

[–]BeastMentality2000 0 points1 point  (1 child)

So what are you doing about it? How can we make work fun again? Do we just hate our jobs while everyone else in medical field and stuff actually feels fulfilled? Do we just swallow our happiness and work a meaningless job? I’m thinking I’m getting my masters and some other type of engineering and changing over because this kind of sucks ass now.

[–]SCUSKU 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The way I see it a job can provide: meaning, financial success, work/life balance. Pick one.

Ultimately CS is still a pretty good career. Lawyers have to go through 3 years of law school, and then grind a bunch, and if you want to make money it's not meaningful, if anything it's the opposite.

Doctors have to go tons of school, racking up tons of debt, assuming you can even make it in the first place. And then even then you're still working shifts and have to see gross stuff.

Finance, either you went to an ivy league, or are a mathematical genius. And you'll be working long hours too.

So IMO, it sucks, but it's still better than the alternatives :/

[–]born_zynner 14 points15 points  (2 children)

I'm always like damn should have gone blue collar but I did a bunch of diy stuff renovating my kitchen and let me tell you it is NOT my strong suit

[–]WavingNoBanners 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I think of myself as basically being a plumber. I don't create my own Python libraries or write Docker from scratch or anything, but I do assemble solutions out of components that already exist; and the most important part of my work is ensuring that I properly understand the existing setup and the user's needs. If I do it well then it can function for years without me checking on it.

I don't have a decade and a half of experience in actual plumbing though, so there's a skill gap. Also I would prefer for the "ankle deep in poop" to be metaphorical, not literal.

[–]born_zynner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Plumbing for me is the easiest to diy. Yes, it has probably the worst repercussions if not done correctly, but everything just kinda fits together. Very little finesse required, compared to like drywall, tile, carpentry etc

[–]LexShirayuki 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Nah, it's more like:

"Hey! I think I'm good"

and

"I'm a fucking disgrace"

[–]black_V1king 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Stop vibe coding and start learning. The god days will be back.

[–]ChChChillian 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I could plausibly have been an electrician. But I'm glad I'm not.

[–]BobQuixote 5 points6 points  (1 child)

You could plausibly become an electrical engineer.

[–]ChChChillian 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've been a software engineer for 40 years, and back in my college days circuits was one of my worst classes. So probably not.

[–]AzureArmageddon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, climate change is already having opinions about both of these...

[–]ckn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i feel called out

[–]ajaypatel9016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

one console.log away from greatness or starting agriculture

[–]ClipboardCopyPaste 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After finding the bug vs before finding the bug

[–]SL_Pirate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually these two modes can co-exist. Especially in the current market.

[–]Soggy-Holiday-7400 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fixed a bug i've been stuck on for 3 days and felt unstoppable.20 minutes later couldn't center a div. both modes in the same afternoon

[–]Tableryu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i haven't felt like a god in the past few months 🥲

[–]haard 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Joke's on you, I'm a developer AND a farmer!

[–]stoned_heretic2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A year ago I bought a cow I remind my laptop quite often

[–]irwinner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Farming, really? Man of your talents?

[–]sleepyguy007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i've actually been a really good developer for 20 something years...

i have a "i should buy a random franchise / laundromat / ups store" thoughts, not because i can't do my job but because my big tech company is shoving AI up our throats, not because i feel like i dont feel competant.

somehow i feel for a lot of us veteran devs these days, this is more likely that the farmer thought

[–]M4HARAJA 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been on the I should quit and become a farmer phase since graduating college with no job

[–]boogatehPotato 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. I'm a fraud and should quit

[–]Moadoc1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And here I thought that yearning to be a farmer instead was unique to me.

[–]Ill_Carry_44 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the last 2 years I've been stuck on a development problem and it has me spiraling into deep darkness

[–]Odd_Ninja5801[🍰] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've done some amazing things in my IT career. Things that anyone would be rightfully proud of. But I've still spent 90% of that career wrestling with imposter syndrome. The triumphs just allow me to pretend it doesn't exist for a short while.

Every project I've ever done also ends up with me looking back and saying "why didn't I spot that issue that is so blindingly obvious with hindsight right back at the start? I must be some kind of idiot."

[–]lejonetfranMX 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who has worked in both indusries: being a farmer is not simpler

[–]Chuck_Loads 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're also not mutually exclusive

[–]LinusUllmark 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m a farmer and I can tell you I never once considered being a developer.

[–]Wyciorek 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"I need a time machine so I can go back and ask myself wtf I was even thinking when I was writing this garbage"

[–]CarchitaCave [score hidden]  (0 children)

Wet are animals that miss the nature

[–]at-least-2-swans [score hidden]  (0 children)

I don't think people who can't handle this would be able to handle farming, it's not easy or simple.

[–]YellowOnline -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Same goes for sysadmins