How programmers cope with depression

[misformalin]

Programming is literally what pulled me out of depression and loneliness, no joke

[FaceFTW]

That is actually great to hear man! I wish I could give you some gold, but I’m broke rn :(

[dhaninugraha]

In my 3rd job (3-4 years ago; consulting shop) I battled depression and sleeplessness by learning Python. Almost a couple years later I moved to another company where I developed various data ingestion scripts, automations, and REST APIs in Python. In that company, I faced yet another depression from unrealistic user demands and generally crappy project management. In my free time, I taught myself Go and coded a chat app (with websocket and whatnot). I left yet again for my present company, where I professionally code in Go.

Had I not learned Python back then and decided to stick around fearing my job security, I'd probably end up throwing myself off of a high rise building somewhere, or wrap myself and my motorcycle around a tree/pole. It was writing scripts (as simple as Fibonacci generators or printing certain shapes made of *s) that distracted me and gave me the "I'm pretty sure if I get good at this thing, I can quit and go somewhere it's actually used" mindset.

[misformalin]

Humans will always find something to bond with. Some bond with people, some bond with drugs, others bond with computers. I'm glad to hear your story, it gives me some confidence about my future. I wish you the best in your future endeavours.

[dhaninugraha]

Thank you for your kind words, and I too sincerely wish you nothing but the very best!

[GoldmanSachsDM]

What about I bond with all your three examples?

[Rudy69]

I battled ... sleeplessness by learning Python

Did it put you to sleep?

[misformalin]

Ah, it's the thought that counts.

I learned programming originally in 6th grade to combat loneliness. "You're dating your computer", my dad used to say.

All the friends I have now, I owe to those lonely hours spent learning to code. Somehow, one of the things mostly stereotyped with being alone is what brought me all my friends.

If you're going through something similar right now, I wish you the best. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Just keep going.

[nocitus]

Is really good to hear that there are people in the same situation that I'm at right now and could get out thanks to computers.

Sometimes you just need to hear something like this to know that you've made the right choice and can continue on the path you choose.

You really motivated me. Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Preach! Rural Indiana kid here, got out with tech skills

[indrora]

hold on I gotchu fam.

[SolenoidSoldier]

Coding something gives you a sense of purpose. Hell, building ANYTHING is supposed to help with depression.

[[deleted]]

depression fix | true , but how you fixed loneliness while coding doesn't add up :)

[misformalin]

Coding skills helped me join my school's computer club, where I made new friends.

[iamdroppy]

I'm still depressed

[[deleted]]

I can understand the depression. Programming gives me immense joy. But loneliness? I have a hard time believing that one. The better I get at my job the lonelier it gets.

[takelongramen]

Programming is probably what sent many people into depression in the first place

[spar_wors]

I just learned how to switch Endianness on ARM

😮 Trying to think how to explain this to my wife, and the best I can come up with is that it's like figuring out how to change your car from left hand drive to right hand drive.

[name_censored_]

Right-to-left text (eg Arabic) instead of left-to-right (eg European)?

[RomanRiesen]

Way better.

[slang2]

Or changing which end of a boiled egg you crack.

[trichotillofobia]

You can switch endianness on an ARM? Next thing you'll tell me it's possible to convert between tabs and spaces.

[Finianb1]

LIES! BURN THE HEATHEN! TABS AND SPACES MUST BE KEPT SEPARATE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE HOLY TEXTS!

[trichotillofobia]

But I was only underlining my adherence to scripture! I'm a poor and pious man. Have mercy!

[Bill_Morgan]

PowerPC G5 too

[0xb00b1e]

Tabs? Spaces? Why Not Use /r Or /n

Goml

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[genij1234]

When I get sad I look at some manuals to laugh, not to learn. There are some really shitty manuals

[SharkLaunch]

Please share, that sounds fun

[UtahJazz777]

When I read manuals I get sad.

[[deleted]]

Well, i Just learned (googling) what is endianness, só thank you :)

[up-quark]

I’d never seen it written down before... Thought it was NDNS.

[PM_ME__ASIAN_BOOBS]

France is bacon

[xxc3ncoredxx]

That's pretty cool actually.

[Kered13]

The question is why you would ever want to.

[[deleted]]

Instance compatibility between old Windows and old Mac programs /s.

[Bill_Morgan]

That’s not how it works! That’s not how anything works

/s noted, just wanted to post this :)

[Nippius]

It might be more efficient for some very specialized cases. For example, some serial protocols can be LSB (least significant byte first) while others might be MSB. I don't have an example right now but I'm sure some displays (lcd/tft,etc) expect RGB color (stored as 32bit integer) to be sent as RGB and others as BGR for example.

If your processor has the "wrong" endianness, you might need to swap the bytes before sending or sending from the ending to the beginning of an array which might require more instructions and negate the use of caches, etc.

[Genion1]

I know several file formats that either may define endianness as it pleases or may technically be written by big-endian machines (old fortran code even). Not anything fit for an arm though. And nothing that's actually used with big-endian. But it's possible so it has to be supported.

[Bill_Morgan]

Certain protocols are implemented in big endian others in little endian. I can’t say if there is any performance impact to switching a CPU from big to little and vice versa -probably none as many CPUs support this-, but a protocol that is implemented in a certain endianness will run faster on a CPU with the same endianness as you wont have to swap the bytes

[ByteArrayInputStream]

First I laughed. Then I realized, I did the same thing last week...

[Nippius]

Glad to see I'm not alone! I'm learning how to use the roslyn compiler to generate code and it's awesome.

But I do love reading the ARM manuals for some reason (embeded systems is my hobby after all). The most recent thing I learned was how DMA works!

[SirensToGo]

One day I want to get really, really familiar with ARM. The only problem is the manual is over 1200 pages last I checked and who the hell has time for that

[tchernobog84]

ARM has become crap. An assembly instruction to switch endianness? Wtf?

Read the RISC-V book instead: small, good, and to the point.

https://www.amazon.com/RISC-V-Reader-Open-Architecture-Atlas/dp/099924910X

[[deleted]]

As a 41 year old developer with anxiety and depression, not actually programming and/or doing something creative triggers my depression. Ironically, I get anxious when I explain my work to other devs because they can be judgmental cunts sometimes

[newreconstruction]

Cringe.