Ask HN: What would you be if you weren't a programmer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32035137

24 50 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

To be clear, I want to ask, what other occupation do you think you would be very good at, if you somehow had never stumbled upon programming as a job?

So basically I am asking, what other occupation would the programmer's mindset and programmer's aptitudes lend themselves effectively to?

anonymous23801• 4 years ago

A pilot. I'm on my way

DarrenDev• 4 years ago

A 50 year old barista struggling to be a writer.

EddieDante• 4 years ago

Probably some kind of criminal.

comprev• 4 years ago

A career in politics then?

WHA8m• 4 years ago

educated criminals work within the law

treeface9000• 4 years ago

some form of engineering... maybe electrical

Mezzie2• 4 years ago

Personally, as someone who prefers not to program as my sole job, it's hard to say since I learned in elementary school and not knowing about computers/programming would have meant I had a VERY different childhood.

As to the other question: In my observation the following areas have some overlap with a programmer's mindset:

- Legal: Particularly things like patent and copyright law.

- Technical writing, fact-checking, and scientific illustration

- Academia or labwork in chemistry or physics

- Chemical or electrical engineering

muzani3• 4 years ago

I've had some good ability with reading laws thanks to programming experience. But I'd say law is more about reading and interpreting rules, while programming is about writing rules based off existing ones. I dislike reading code, so I'd probably not enjoy being a lawyer.

Philosophy is a nice parallel. Paul Graham is notable for being both philosopher and programmer.

Mezzie2• 4 years ago

It depends on which area of law. My experience (not a lawyer, but did legal/civics communication for a couple of years) is that legal theory and constitutional law (or whatever the local equivalent is) would be the best match because a lot of that is basically arguing about systems design.

For someone who did like reading code, they would be more suited to patent or copyright law.

VoodooJuJu• 4 years ago

Artist - painter, landscape architect, stone sculptor, one of these things.

So basically I am asking, what other occupation would the programmer's mindset and programmer's aptitudes lend themselves effectively to?

Although it's what I'd be if I weren't a programmer, I think artist is actually at odds with the programmer's aptitudes and mindset. In the words of one of the greatest programmers:

"It's an Asperger profession; smart but artless"

- Alan Kay on programming

olvy02• 4 years ago

I agree. Although I think the closest a programmer can come to being a "real" artist, whatever that means, would be being an indie gamedev.

Which I once aspired to be but never got there.

lakomen3• 4 years ago

I disagree, you can create art with code, if the language lets you (Go doesn't).

mikewarot• 4 years ago

When I started college, I majored in Electrical Engineering because I was ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that there wasn't even a modest income that could have been made in the 1980 and beyond as a programmer, the thing I really wanted to be. Reality showed me otherwise. ;-)

I've enjoyed programming, being a system administrator (now called DevOps), and being a machinist (making gears). You're a tool maker and user, as are we all... there are many types of tools to make or use.

Artist, as others have said... there's really no limit.

lakomen3• 4 years ago

Oh? I thought DevOps is code for k8s manager ;)

muzani3• 4 years ago

I'm basically a writer at core. Writing stories pays terribly, but writing code pays well. I don't have the brain nor passion to leetcode well, but architecture and clean code are really easy. I throw the language part of my brain at learning code. I can't learn code from docs, but pick it up fast from examples.

Most likely I'd be doing sales though. I discovered I was pretty damn good at sales but the programming jobs never stopped coming in. It was just a matter of taking the job that paid better and requires less commuting.

A third career option would have been cooking. I almost went into this, it seemed pretty easy to make millions of dollars on. I consulted restauranteurs who were making millions of dollars in revenue a year. They basically told me I'm an idiot -- running a business was a prison, like having kids. They'd pick up tech jobs if they could.

tra3• 4 years ago

That's so interesting. I wouldn't consider writing stories and writing code to be similar... clearly you have a knack for communicating though, if you're good at sales.

I like writing code, but stories/selling is definitely not my thing. I wonder what it is that makes this resonate:

I can't learn code from docs, but pick it up fast from examples.

Melting_Harps• 4 years ago

A third career option would have been cooking. I almost went into this, it seemed pretty easy to make millions of dollars on. I consulted restauranteurs who were making millions of dollars in revenue a year. They basically told me I'm an idiot -- running a business was a prison, like having kids. They'd pick up tech jobs if they could.

They were right, restaurants are the biggest money pits and be sure to thank them on Xmas with a card for allowing you to focus on other aims as so many were destroyed during COVID. As for cooking... no one makes millions from cooking, ever. You have to become a celebrity chef and stop cooking and become a one man Media and PR team and sale books or do tours/TV which is the furthest thing you'd want if you actually enjoy working line (being part masochist I actually did).

I enjoy writing scripts/pilots/short stories, and have experience coding but it's not something I enjoy or like: I find it a reductionist and often tedious task I was forced to learn to code because I couldn't convince anyone to build me what I needed when I launched my fintech startup. How did you overcome this, coding doesn't seem creative at all by comparison.

I'm only coming back to coding after a ~4.5 year hiatus and study CS (AI/ML) but the truth is I'm struggling to find the motivation and I think I'll probably end up in product management more than being a developer and consultant: I'm just glad I chose python back then since all of the AI and ML stuff is using it.

muzani3• 4 years ago

How did you overcome this, coding doesn't seem creative at all by comparison.

There's patterns in writing, just like music and code. Creativity comes with playing within the restrictions. That's literally how poetry works; you're limiting words into some artificial form.

I love mobile development because it has some fairly extreme restrictions -- everything from screen size to operating system restrictions. These days you're also dealing with feature flagging plus dropped connections, with longer app review periods. Plus tons more restrictions like tests, low end devices, lifecycle, and Google/Apple being schizophrenic.

I think the real hit to creativity is not the work itself, but the process. Our team doesn't have project managers or scrum masters. Product tells us what users want, we tell them the cost.

My team goes even more extreme - no style documents, no naming convention, and architecture is just a shared document that everyone edits. It's like a band. Someone plays a rhythm or riff and the others play around it. Git blame shows that some of our classes have been edited by 4 different people. Each module appears to have a unique, inconsistent style, but it becomes like the varied songs of an album.

plasticchris• 4 years ago

I like to work on cars, I think the debugging is pretty close. But it isn’t a great job, it wears people out.

olvy02• 4 years ago

What I would have liked to be: a poet, a novelist, a translator.

I've been writing poems and short stories through high school.

What I would possibly ended up being: unemployed.

labrador• 4 years ago

A mechanical engineer or mechanic. I like to build machines, software or otherwise

traverseda• 4 years ago

A (small) part of why I entered programming was disenfranchisement, my family was poor and technology provided an out. An out that didn't require me to get massively in debt with student loans.

These days I'm less of an angry teenager and my family is no longer in poverty. If I was looking for an alternative I might go the commercial pilot route. I should be able to do that without going into significant debt.

MrBoomixer• 4 years ago

Photographer, Designer, VFX something along those lines I think.

sneak• 4 years ago

“If I had only known, I would have become a locksmith.”

- Einstein

hcs• 4 years ago

I've pictured myself in a research librarian or archivist role, cataloguing and searching catalogues. When I've done similar work as a volunteer or enthusiast, it's been the closest feeling to getting obsessed over coding. Maybe also when digging through a web of development history to see how a bug happened.

Not sure how closely that's connected to programmer aptitudes, I may be getting away with that despite not being particularly good at it. And I don't actually have any library science background so I may just be imagining my fit for that.

jsiaajdsdaa• 4 years ago

I probably would have been a chef, because I am good at cooking and don't really enjoy pursuing "real" careers like doctors or real estate agents.

poulsbohemian• 4 years ago

pursuing "real" careers like doctors or real estate agents.

As a real estate agent, I can tell you the 80/20 rule is strong in this field. The majority of people are grossly unqualified and do the work poorly, while the skill of the remaining 20% will absolutely pay off for you in terms of efficiency and financial outcome.

It's a double-edged sword where on one level it's great that it is an accessible profession, but on the other it is too important in terms of the impact to people's lives to be a license you can pull out of a Cracker Jack box. By and large, that's what it is, and unfortunately few members of the general public really do any research on their agent and state agencies are pretty lax in any kind of enforcement. Above all else, I'd encourage people to really interview their agent, get to know their business strengths and weaknesses, and don't just hire them because "they seem nice."

Case in point: In my market there is a guy who has been an agent for decades. Takes pictures with his phone, which are always out of focus, turned sideways, and he always ends up with a toilet seat up or something else just gross. Dude gets a ton of listings, which sit and sit and sit on market even for as strong as things have been the past few years. The guy has no business being an agent with that kind of crappy representation of his clients, yet he gets a lot of business because he's slapped a lot of backs and shook a lot of hands. Until the general public gets smarter about who they are hiring, they will continue to get poor outcomes - and that's really sad.

dopidopHN• 4 years ago

Gardener. Or bread backer. ( I'm French, it's definitively a 'real' job there, but also it's too much work for too little pay )

the_only_law• 4 years ago

Doing research in a field that interests me. Hell, I'm still young, we'll see what the next several years bring.

sircastor• 4 years ago

I wanted to make robots when I was a kid, and I have an enduring interest in electrical engineering. I probably would’ve gone into that. I don’t know that I would’ve done well in the coursework in school, but as a hobby I absolutely love it.

rg1112• 4 years ago

A man (or woman, or gender fluid person) is not one-dimensional. His personality, character, has many facets, many sides. At least that's how a man should be given enough chance of growth.

I do many academic-type things. I teach sometimes. So, if I were not in research and engineering at industry, I would be working full time at a university. I would still write code, do math, etc.

If that were not viable (either too high paper bar or very low pay), I would be in public administration or be a police officer. I can naturally lead people from the get-go, and have other people skills, I am a very good stage performer, too. Public speaking never frightened me. I can write. Honesty matters a lot to me: to a level that I am sometimes labeled naive and impractical.

I am sure I would make a very good salesman, too. If there's a third world war, and the tech companies, unis are bust, and money, stocks all go to the dogs, I would become a salesman. It is a doomsday scenario. I have been good at fundraising for charities. I am confident that I can sell if I want to.

I am very attracted and regular consumer and creator of poetry, paintings, recitations, movies. Yet, these don't pay even s**. Would never become this. I would have to take normies' opinion seriously to sell more, scale more. Would be soul-sucking. Won't become a professional artist, ever. When I do art now, I don't give a damn what the normies think. I would like to keep it that way. Forever.

mathgeek• 4 years ago

A man (or woman, or gender fluid person) is not one-dimensional.

I just want to point out that calling people “normies” is one-dimensional categorization. I loved reading your self reflections until you got to the point where you chose to classify a huge chunk of the population as one-dimensional and unworthy of your consideration.

rg1112• 4 years ago

you chose to classify a huge chunk of the population as one-dimensional and unworthy of your consideration

Yes I chose to do it.

I lived too close to them for too long.

I still have PTSD about them.

Vast swathes of people are indeed too simplistic. They want to watch the Rock, Vin Diesel, and want to mindlessly watch sports for hours, and they browse tik tok and stupid stuff on fb. They will go batshit with you if you don't agree with their politics.

I have seen these people.

You can ride on your high horse and tell me that my mind is limited.

But I have seen them.

Don't want to be in a position where I have to depend on their taste for my livelihood.

I do not hate them. But their hoard is something I am legitimately afraid of.

Note: I have seen rich normies with "high" education. I have seen people of proper culture from impoverished background who had no college education.

secludedrelish• 4 years ago

A man (or woman, or gender fluid person)

Or "a person".

John23832• 4 years ago

A specialist doctor or study some biological system (a particular interest of mine is the immune system and antibiotics).

The human body is the machine we wish we could make, but one we also don’t understand enough to master.

skydhash• 4 years ago

I'd probably be a graphic designer or an illustrator. There was a point in high school where I was as good in graphic art as in programming. Then, I went to study electronic engineering.

I understand everything visually. Thinking about code is basically me visualizing and exploring some kind of abstract structure representing the architecture of my program.

abraxas• 4 years ago

Probably a teacher of programming. I love seeing the "aha" moment in people's faces when the finally get something. It's an instant gratification even bigger than when cutting code. I used to work as a teacher in a local college while doing my Masters.

sterlind• 4 years ago

me personally? a linguist, probably. I love languages and have a knack for them. interestingly, I always got perfect scores on verbal aptitude tests but did significantly worse on math.

I've also discovered my passion for math, finally, even though I'm not supposed to be good at it. graph theory, topology, abstract algebra etc. but I'm not sure I would have gotten there since I believed I was bad at it growing up.

dafelst• 4 years ago

One of the most rewarding things for me in my stints as a engineering manager has been providing a (hopefully) positive influence on my reports lives through listening and empathy and giving advice, then seeing them get through tough times (work related or not) or grow as people. It has helped me grow too.

Based on that, I think being a therapist or psychiatrist might have been a good choice for me.

I dual majored EE and CS and like EE more than programming, so EE seems like a natural fallback, but I was nowhere near as good at electronics compared to software.

navjack27• 4 years ago

I wish I was a programmer. lol!

I don't get how your brains work.

Finding problems to solve programmatically just escapes me when I can just be in the loop and do it myself.

I'd waste so much time if I approached every problem that way... But then that's just for me personally. professionally I'd go to you guys to make my life smoother at work, if I worked.

Although I'm starting to get PowerShell and Python and Power Automate Desktop for automating things I'd usually do myself, manually, over and over.

TrackerFF• 4 years ago

Not a programmer now - but rather analyst.

I'd probably be a electrician or electrical engineer. I worked as an (electrician) apprentice for a year, then went to school and got my (electrical) engineering degree.

On one side - if I had continued to work as an EE, I'd probably have a much higher salary right now. But I find analytical work more rewarding, and electrical engineering work can be a bit tedious IMO. I'm lucky with my work right now, as every week tends to be different - I'm not really cut out to become a specialist, where one continues to become more and more specialized in some niche.

mikelevins• 4 years ago

A starving artist. That’s what I was before I was a programmer.

lakomen3• 4 years ago

No physical work, that's for sure.

I enjoy cooking, maybe a cook. But I also hate how much time it consumes of the day, the whole shopping and cooking ritual every day.

Idk if I'd enjoy it doing professionally. In school I picked the cooking and uh.. housecare, like knitting and all that? class instead of the technics class, because I didn't like doing physical work. Nice side effect, all the girls were there too and I got to cook and bake delicious stuff instead of boring holes into wood or sawing or all the boring uninteresting stuff I never cared about.

All the boys were interested in cars, I didn't care about them. Care were just tools in my book. I guess I'm a feminine man, altough I certainly look like a bear. Or maybe I just pick the way of least resistance or shall I say with most benefits.

In retrospect all the friends and contacts said "you're doing it right".

I just had to think about it today, I had a friend how did everything "the way it should be done"TM. Finished base school, was a trainee, got a proper job, invested in house savings, went to church, etc.

I was the complete opposite. Rebel. Went to 5 schools, got kicked out of training, never got a drivers license, did drugs and tried the life of the party and entertainment. I was a looser, still am kind of, if you go by his criteria. Then I landed a programming job in 2001 and earned 150% of what this former friend was earning lmao. He hated me foe that I believe. He was so jealous.

Well my records got stolen and I never continued my DJing and music career. So I had to go with the other thing I knew, computing. I was cracking games at the age of 12 and wrote and linked cracktros in asm on the c64 at the age of 13. That became less relevant in my mid teens where I just loved scratching, rap music, classical music, any kind of music. I started composing on the Amiga with Fasttracker. But well since this path ended later... I was one of the first people to write cheats for the 1st MMORPG Meridian 59 and learn about all the principles, networking, objects, inhertiances and whatnot.

When no one wanted to employ me I became self-employed, learned PHP MySQL HTML CSS Linux. Created websites with adsense on them, had a shared hosting company.

Nowadays I'm almost back to square one, only with the knowledge to create in the "virtual world". And I ask myself what else would I do? I don't know. It's the question I've been asking myself. If I had a driver's license, I'd drive stuff or people from A to B. But that would get boring eventually, because I sometimes really love to create and build, only not physically.

What instead? I have a talent for languages. Maybe gardening? But that's physical work. I'm good at delegating. You do this, you do that, Yes boss. But I hate leading. Idk, I really don't know. Maybe I should produce music again.

I development I'm motivated by the new problem that needs to be solved. I'm not interested solving the same problem again and again. I don't enjoy only frontend or only backend. It needs to be both. I love seeing things grow, but not too slowly. Ideally I would not work and live off investment returns, but I don't have that kind of money.

Oooh I remembered I really loved book-keeping activa saldi I enjoyed that very much.

mrwh• 4 years ago

Interesting question, and interesting that so many people are giving variations of writer as the response. (Shades of, "If I weren't doing my job, I'd be doing my hobby"? Though that feels an ungenerous reading.) Me? I'd assume some other technical field. If I hadn't got into computers at a young age I can imagine having got into chemistry, say.

The skills I have are those I've developed _as_ a working programmer, less so those that I brought to the job. So this isn't really answering your question. If I'd never become a software engineer, I'd never have developed a programmer's mindset or attitudes.

hgs3• 4 years ago

The appeal of programming for me is that I'm creating something. So, if I couldn't be a programmer, I'd do something else that involves creating: artist, writer, music composer, architect, civil engineer, carpenter, etc...

pjmlp• 4 years ago

Probably an electrical engineer.

klysm• 4 years ago

I could be nerd sniped into just about any field with mind ticking problems that require creative problem solving.

gravitate• 4 years ago

Sysadmin but even that could require you to use the terminal which is close to programming but not quite

throwaway-blaze• 4 years ago

My brother in law is a professional chef, worked in some of the best restaurants in the country. He's not much for book learning, but I've watched him in restaurant kitchens a couple of times and he's mentally a programmer. He can keep track of the variables and ordering of steps to get multiple courses for multiple tables of 2/4/6 people out to be delivered simultaneously. These aren't grilled cheese sandwiches, some of these dishes are incredibly complex.

So, although we'd have to get used to working on our feet and sweating (aka doing "real work") I suspect many programmers have the mindsets to be professional cooks. They might not have the talent to invent new things as a chef does, but they could certainly become competent line cooks.

lifeplusplus• 4 years ago

if money wasn't a major issue i'd have spent my entire life in theoretical physics, getting paid to argue physics all day THAT's the life

Ask HN: What would you be if you weren't a programmer?

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