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robotnoises

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Money. I work for a large Enterprise software company and we are not "changing the world." That's fine, by the way, but the answer is money and it always has been.

I have two young children at home and nothing is going to come close to making me feel as fulfilled as being their father. Since we need money to live I have to go away for 8-9 hours a day, working on CRUD applications and their supporting systems. What keeps me in my seat is the money I can eventually bring home to to my wife and children.

To a non-parent this may seem a somewhat bleak and uninspiring vision of what we do as software developers, but the truth is that being able to provide for my family is one of the most intensely satisfying enterprises I have ever taken-on. It allows us to put good, healthy food on the table and live in a neighborhood with walking trails and a nearby lake. My children sleep in comfortable beds. The temperature in our home is always appropriate.

If I can't spend the bulk of my time with my family then next best thing is producing money that directly benefits them.

It's fair to point out, considering that the general attitude towards React is that it's some panacea of simplicity, shining down from atop the mountain upon the unwashed masses. We still need developers in this world. :)

"React is just JavaScript, there is a very small API to learn, just a few functions and how to use them. After that, your JavaScript skills are what make you a better React developer. There are no barriers to entry. A JavaScript developer can become a productive React developer in a few hours."

To me, this is the major driver of React's adoption and thus its success. Angular 1 took me a while to grok because there were so many moving parts. React's API is small and consistent a la JQuery, with the added bonus of being incredibly powerful.

That's a badass schedule. I've often wondered/daydreamed about running a company with a similar schedule.

E.g. Extremely focused, productive mornings for writing code, meaning no interruptions if possible followed by lunch until whenever, then afternoons are flex time for meetings/planning/whatever the business needs.

Profession: Software Engineer (Web) at a large enterprise software company (~12k employees)

Workday:

- [6:30 am] Wake up and get the kids ready (I try and let my wife sleep-in since she has likely been up several times during the night tending to our infant son)

- [8:00-8:15] Get to work, check Email/Slack

- Write Code

- Mid-morning stand-up

- Write Code

- Home for lunch (I'm a 12 min drive from home)

- [1:00 pm] Write Code

- [5:15 pm] Home to run around with my insane 3 y/o

- [8:00 pm] Both kids are in bed

- [8:05 pm] Go for a jog

- [9:00 pm] Either work on side projects or read a book

This is pretty much every day. The software I work on is not exactly inspiring stuff but my company grants me a stable and predictable schedule of which I am thankful for.

Well, it was Courtland's right to publish his financials when he was the sole proprietor of IH. Now he's a Stripe employee and therefore is governed by their policy on the matter, I assume.

To me there are two automated testing philosophies:

1. Write tests to prove your code works, which is sometimes referred to as "test-driven development"

2. Write tests to catch any side effects or regressions when altering code

Funny thing is that if you write good tests, then the results are pretty much the same regardless of your motivation.

I enjoy reading Indie Hackers, but yes, the math on the monthly revenue is almost always fuzzy. I find it's best to just enjoy the content of the interview and ignore the "stats."

Fun story, I just found out yesterday during my annual performance review than I am a Senior Software Engineer. No, not a promotion, but rather I have always been one. It was simply an HR mistake that my title did not reflect it and no one realized that I didn't know.

So to answer the original question: it is impossible to know.

Nearly every cocky programmer I have ever worked with were average at best. And you could never teach them anything they didn't "already" know.

So true, and this is applicable in almost every discipline, really:

"Nearly every cocky x I have ever worked with were average at best. And you could never teach them anything they didn't "already" know."