Do you ever get tired of it all?

[CodedFire]

Il be the first to admit my studying of vb has been slow and steady. Latley though i seem to just not want to do it. Does this happen to anyone else? For instance i was working on a nice little program that would store all my passwords and log in info.

I spent time detailing what it should look like, how the data should be stored etc and started to plough into it. I was quite excited too, because this would be my first proper app. Meaning would i could give to people and one they would find functional. Maybe even use it on a day to day basis.

I completed the interface, the user controls added the icons and wrote all the navigation code. Basicly all i needed to do was add the database and hook it to the app....... Then i stopped, i dont know why, ive never worked with databases before and wanted to do this one in code. But will reading up on database i became confused and annoyed. Any examples i had to learn from used wizards and controls, i didnt want to use wizards and controls. I found more tutorials but hey all assumed i had the "pubs" database.

So in the end i became so annoyed i havent went back to it, in fact i ended up wasting two months on WOW because of it. I would really like to finish the app because it would be a milestone. Im sure a programmers first useful application is. But for some reason i just can't. Maybe if i could get a good sql server 2005 tutorial that shows how to hook everything up in code i would. My worry is this may happen on the next hard bit of learning i come across.

Is this normal? does every developer have parts of a program they hate doing?

[RobDog888]

Everybody gets "burned out" at one point or another. But when you hit a roadblock its especially difficult to keep pushing forward trying to solve the issue. If you do manage to keep to it and solve the issue you will get renewed and recharged.

Have you tried either JMC's or Mendhaks ADO.NET tutorials?

[CodedFire]

Yeah thats how i feel. I heard Mendhak wrote one, i didnt know john did, i must check these out. Maybe it is to do with how i am implementing my code that is also causing friction. I tend to use a top down approch to programming where as a bottom up would get the bussiness logic done and out of the way first.

[mendhak]

A practice-first approach would help. When you know you have the principles ready, you can go back to your original application and apply what you've learned.

[Paul M]

I have been the same way, if you notice i have barely any activity on VBF recently and i have not done anything except some graphics for a project which was suppose t have started last week -.-

But knowing how my mind works ill give it another week before i get right back into things plus its been holidays the last week and i have had some assignments and stuff due.

[Hack]

The problem with doing this kind of work for a living is that you are not affored the luxury of dropping something out of frustration. Regardless of how things are going, deadlines still must be met. Sometimes you have to take a real deep breath and just keep going.

[mendhak]

True, true. OK, so we get 28 days of paid vacation time (unless you're in the US, ha ha!!), which serves really well to cope with any stress. That helps you to get over the "I'm tired of all this" syndrome. There are always other distractions too - games, movies, books, smoking, world peace, hatred for onions. It also helps you to stay motivated if you always remind yourself that coding is first and foremost a hobby rather than a chore or a task or something you just have to do.

[CodedFire]

Thats actually some good advice mendhak. Generally i tend to forget that this is a hobby rather than something i do for a living. Think im going to start back up on that project from monday.

[mendhak]

That's me, changing lives, half at a time.

To be sure, to be sure.

[RobDog888]

True, true. OK, so we get 28 days of paid vacation time (unless you're in the US, ha ha!!), which serves really well to cope with any stress. That helps you to get over the "I'm tired of all this" syndrome. There are always other distractions too - games, movies, books, smoking, world peace, hatred for onions. It also helps you to stay motivated if you always remind yourself that coding is first and foremost a hobby rather than a chore or a task or something you just have to do.

Good advice! I should try it sometime as I never have time due to project deadlines.

*Shall we play a game?*





I get 0 days

[mendhak]

No way you get 0 days, there are laws against that!

[RobDog888]

Yes, but what am I to do, sue myself?

[mendhak]

Aah, a contractor, am I right? I think that's common then, I've heard from contracting coworkers that they don't go on vacation for years at a time. I suppose your only chance is as soon as your current contract ends.

[RobDog888]

Not realy but close. I am self empoyed with my own Software Development company. So I get to work a minimum of 16 hours a day for 7 days a week for every week of the month for every month of the year for every year that I survive.

This is the easiest way to "get tired of it all" and resort to pushig off a project for a bit and "relax" a bit by posting of developer forums

[CodedFire]

Actually i find it the opposite, if i had not of made a few posts around the site i think i would have put it off more. Reading and posting in the VB section gets the juices flowing again, BTW 35 days off fully paid NEH NEH.

[CodedFire]

4 weeks (Thats 28)
2 Weekend Leaves (Basicly extra sunday off, 30)
2 Birthday Days (I would have prefered a bonus in fairness, 32)
Good Friday, St Stephens Day Christmass Day And New Years Day. (These are EXTRA days of, IE not included in standard days off)

I belive that makes 35 Mr Frog!

[mendhak]

What is an "Extra Sunday off"? You work Sundays?

[RobDog888]

Since your two get ~1 month off a year, then whats with all the crying? (violin playing in background)

[CodedFire]

@ Mendhak, yes sunday would be one of our bussiest days. Our Paperwork gets coalated on sunday for dispatch on monday, its all hands on deck.

@Robdog888, when you deal with people with less than adaqute hygenne standards asking stupid questions day in day out, sometimes a month is just not enough! Funny id trade my days off for a more enjoyable and challanging job. Perspective is everything as they say.

[DirtyHowi]

to answer CF original question...everyday, round 5ish in the afternoon....

some mornings its all i can do to chew thru the leather straps to go into the office.

[bigMeUp]

I blame it all on Microsoft. Maybe to keep the campus in business, it's always coming up with new stuff. In the last few years, we've gone from vs6.0 to 2008, with tremendous shifts in paradigm. Today I got a call for a prospective job, and they are dangling `working with SqlServer 2008` as bait. I didn't even know there was a SqlServer 2008. Heck, I am barely conversant with 2005; I still haven't used 2005 to host my VB-written assemblies... and God alone knows what other capabilities its got.

And I suspect that even some `experts`don't have a solid understanding of the new technologies; this, from some of my experiences in the industry. Visual components which are dropped on forms, but which directly interface with the underlying security system (?!), interfaces which are implemented on single objects only (?!!), mishandled application blocks...

Then, there is this rush to use the `latest` technology, without much ryhme or reason. I was once asked in an interview in Jan 2006 how many months' experience I had with VS 2005. Of course, I hadn't had any commercial experience at that time, but how many could have? The question annoyed me, and I asked the interviewers back in reply, `What specific problems are you attempting to solve by using VS 2005 over 2003?` I didn't get an answer or the job, but I felt good!

So now I've got books on XML (haven't read it), VB 2005, VB 2008 (haven't read this either), C# (haven't even opened this), sql2005 (dipped into it, couldn't figure out what I was reading), asp.net (read a bit months ago, have forgotten it all now I think), reflection (read some of it, probably forgetting it a little more every day), remoting (read it, used it, forgot it), multi-threading (dipped into it) and God knows what else. And Microsoft's banging on about LINQ (won't that just be a Microsoft verion/standard of SQL, and won't idiotic project managers start asking for 6 years' LINQ in a years' time?) And don't even mention Business Intelligence! I have a certain amount of Crystal Reports experience, but BI seems to be yet another foggy, gaseous, far-off cyber universe!!

Am I tired of it all? Are you freaking kidding me???!!!

[schaefer]

I really enjoy when I can just sit at my desk and be left alone to write code. When I have to go to stupid meetings with people who shouldn't be allowed near a computer to give me requirements I always think about how much nicer it would be to work in another industry. When I get that next paycheck and schedule my next vacation to the Bahamas it makes it all worthwhile though.

BTW: I'm an American and a contractor and I take off about 3 weeks each year. Contractors who can't take vacation time are simply underpaid and should demand more money on their contracts. All of my clients know that I will be gone for a week in Feb to go skiing and gone for a week in July to go fishing and gone on any other day I feel like not coming in.

[bigMeUp]

Maybe I should move to America.

I'm on `holiday` maybe four months of the year; that's in-between contracts to you and me. And that's unpaid worktime, as far as I am concerned, because that's when I try to read some of these expensive freakin' books... Fishing, the Bahamas? Fish and chips and the travel channel, you mean??

[FunkyDexter]

Our Paperwork gets coalated on sunday for dispatch on monday, its all hands on Dec.

Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape.

I occasionally get burned out with a job but it's always with the office politics rather than the coding. That said, I don't think I've done and 'hobby' coding for years, by the time I get home from work it's the last thing I'd be interested in doing.

[dclamp]

actually. ATM, i am not motivated in anyway to do programming. I have found myself turning on my computer, opening MSN, checking email then going "What now". I have been incredibly bored and have resorted to doing other things.... like.... praying while i crotch... not really.

[schaefer]

I find that opening scene of the Matrix where Neo is asleep in front of his computer motivates me. I spent most of my younger years falling asleep in front of my computer just like that and I guess it makes me nostalgic for when I was doing this just for fun and not getting paid.

[CodedFire]

Well im slowly getting back into it, i think the trick is not to do too much at any one time, ive foiund if i spend an hour or two every second night i feel better.

[Pasvorto]

I don't burn out on writing code, but I DO burn out on trying to keep up with Micro$oft. Just upgraded 2 of my 3 servers to Server 2003 (yes, I said 2003, not 2008!). My SQL Server DB is still 2000. I upgraded my Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 last fall. I am currently trying to get my VB6 apps to VB2005 (not 2008). I have 70+ PCs running XP and 1 running VISTA. I know that new PCs will have to be running VISTA. More "new" stuff shoved down my throat.

Last fall I upgraded all the Office 2000 to Office 2003. Micro$oft Dynamics is at 9.0 and the 10.0 CDs are sitting on my desk.

I am a one man shop. It is very difficult to keep up with the "supportable" versions of software.

That is what gets me burned out. <phew>

[KiwiDexter]

Everybody gets "burned out" at one point or another. But when you hit a roadblock its especially difficult to keep pushing forward trying to solve the issue. If you do manage to keep to it and solve the issue you will get renewed and recharged.

Have you tried either JMC's or Mendhaks ADO.NET tutorials?

Too true Rob, but then I just remind myself it could be worse ... I could have taken up Accountancy <insert own sewage worker and fringe benefits joke here, hope they don't take their work home>

[mendhak]

Saw this slashdot article today, reminded me of this thread:
http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/04/29/1917224.shtml