loosing will

**ElastoManiac** · 08-21-2006

I have programmed for many years now, and last few months i have just lost will to do it. I had enthysiasm and dreams to make games and learn OpenGL, classes, pointers, ... I'm rather young ( 17 years ), but that doesn't limit my knowledge. And now when i get to the computer ( and that's rarely ) and try to programm, i just loose will, it gets boring. Like i know all that i can, and there isn't anything left to learn. I started to forget all that i knew, i knew to work in Blender, i knew just about every glFunction. And now it's all gone, i'm falling down the endless hole. It's all forgot.

And not only that i don't do programming, I don't play games - can you imagine that ... it's not 'cause they're expansive ( i can get them illegaly ) it's for some other reason. I don't do anything on my computer anymore, except play music sometimes. I started to play soccer, and that's all i do for whole day. I also started to think about life, And i also noticed that it isn't too late to change my interests. Have you ever felt this way? This ain’t no technological breakdown! Oh no, this is the road to hell!

Imagine how was it before ... when you didn't lived your life in World of Warcraft, you lived it in reality. So i choose to forget all that i have learned, turn my back on computers, and face the reality. It's not that i want to do so, it came naturally...

So i gues this is my last topic, what do you think about this?

**whiteflags** · 08-21-2006

I've been there before. It's pretty natural for people to change their interests and decide not to do X anymore. It's very fascinating when it happens, because occassionally you'll decide to do something in place of X and be quite wonderful at it.

**ElastoManiac** · 08-21-2006

so have you done it?

**whiteflags** · 08-21-2006

Me? Sure, tons of times, and it's going to happen even more now that I'm going to college. Since I was six years old I wanted to be a doctor, and then around the age of 16, I decided that might not be very smart because I would hate having to operate on someone with my poor motor skills. I was totally prepared to work for it though.

Programming is also something that can get very dull quickly for some people, in fact, they made a movie about it called Office Space. I haven't made a decision about programming as a career yet either. My dad did it for a long time, but I saw nothing interesting in his work, and the typical Dilbert situation (living in a maze of cubicles) fails to attract me. I guess what is most important is you remember that you didn't waste your time - maybe your interest will spark again, or maybe you will need a career change as opposed to wanting one.

**Mario F.** · 08-21-2006

Interest comes and goes at its own rate.

The dull thing, Elasto, would be if you hand't found yourself attracted to the change. It's quiet normal to lose interest on something. And it's probably also a very clear sign of good health.

The wonderful thing is that your experience of life will grow bigger with each new thing you try. Living life to the fullest is about change. Is about doing many things and not being afraid to move on when they are not appealing anymore.

And, who knows, you wouldn't be the first, neither would you be the last, to move on away from programming, only to return later with a renewed strength. Follow your impulses and don't worry much about that nagging feeling of throwing away some knowledge you acquired. It will come back to you if the need arises. Many of us have experienced periods in which we wanted more of life than being seated in front of a screen.

**SlyMaelstrom** · 08-21-2006

If you lose interest, try taking up another hobby or trade. You'll start learning something new, and when you're interested again, you can jump back into programming. Obviously, don't throw programming to the side completely, as you'll want to keep up with it so you maintain the knowledge you've already learned, but it's not abnormal to lose interest in programming as much as you did for periods of time. I used to play the drums, a lot, before I started programming all of the time, then when I wasn't programming as much, I got back into drums for a while. I still programmed, but it was good because I didn't waste my time on something I wasn't as interested in and get better at drums. I think people losing interest in things they like is like an internal time management system that our body has. It knows we need to try something different so it tries to free up time in your day to do so.

**ElastoManiac** · 08-21-2006

Yeah i gues you all have a point there... I shall wait and see what time brings me. So long until then...

**twomers** · 08-21-2006

You've your whole life ahead of you (says the person whose three years older than you).

I went through a phase of not playing my guitars for about 2 or 3 months ... I shudder to remember that period. I just got bored with them all for some abrupt reason, literally, one minute I was playing, then I decided I didn't want to play them any more. Anyways, I went off them for a bit, and that was good, cause I was playing the guitar too often, I think. I now play the guitar a bit (possibly a lot, I don't know what i should compare it to), but not too much. If you spend too much time on one hobby, you're just drowning yourself in it (or from it), in which case it doesn't become a hobby any more, in which case you need some time out from it, in which !case you begin to hate it (In my experience anyways). It sounds like you could have been immersed in programming, so I think a break is a good thing, but I'm sure you'll be back! And don't be too long

**SlyMaelstrom** · 08-21-2006

It also depends on whether programming is a hobby to you or your career path. I hope to persue programming professionally, so when I put it aside for a bit, I still make sure I study any chance I get. I won't be learning as much, but I'll retain what I know. That's important.

**Rennor** · 08-21-2006

ElastoManiac, you've got many good tapping on your back here already, let me give you another

While programming is "just" your hobby and not work, it has the greatest attribute above all; You dont have to do it.

Infact... The way you feel about it now, I believe it's best for you not to force doing it. Advices here to go and try new things is right into the spot and sooner or later you might come back to programming.

When I was younger and programmed some "cool demo effects" for fun, sometimes I felt like you described. Sitting in front of computer just made me want to do something else. I became quite good in drawing cartoons because of those "periods" since I allways returned back to programming when I felt the same emptiness in drawing. That circle led me into programming for food

And now I cant stop and draw cartoons if I feel dull, theres project schedules to keep up with

Oh, and 7 years of no coding with C/C++ did not wash away my knowledge. Once I get rid of VB projects I am back and only needed few weeks of rust-removing.

I wouldnt worry about forgetting either... maybe a break from programming lets your brain burn the syntax you learned to your backbone now youre not stressing that part of your mind

**ElastoManiac** · 08-22-2006

ok, thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it!

**cboard_member** · 08-22-2006

Oh I've done this quite a lot. I think of it as writers / artists block or something.
It doesn't bother me too much because if I put myself into a position where I can't get at a PC for more than 12 hours I start getting "withdrawl symptoms".

( That means I writing programs and listening to my music library in my head )

**SMurf** · 08-22-2006

Back when I was a complete newbie to programming (about 10 years ago now, when I was about 11) I used to bang my head against Visual Basic because I couldn't understand the logic involved in programming. I just wrote a bit of code the way I thought it should be written, waited for the stream of errors it generated to appear, floundered about with it trying to make it work and then gave up. I told myself "I've had it, programming is just too hard/annoying"...

But a couple of weeks down the line, there I'd be, back grinding the VB axe.
Maybe I'm a stickler for punishment, but I did eventually work out my logic issues and now I can pull working code for any language out of my aaaa...

I'd liken programming to being one of the best relationships you'll ever have. You and your computer'll fall out over the little things again and again but it'll always be there, waiting for you for when you come back to it.

**ThWolf** · 08-23-2006

Losing interest in something is natural, it happens to everyone. It happend to me a lot of time (Yes, also with programming). I used to program with VB when I was about 11, I have no idea how I actually understood everything... then I stopped when I got to something that was too hard, then I started again, stopped, started again and stopped. Same happened with HTML.

One morning you'll probably wake up and start to want to do programming again.
Trust me, I wish I had stopped playing games. But I can't, I'm addict

(lol not like those people that don't go to the bathroom and pee in a bottle becuase they don't want to stop playing thier game, I heard about such a case in TV).

**Mario F.** · 08-23-2006

Even games will become boring after too many years playing them. Trust me on this. There will come a day when you will look at the newest-flashy high-tech-awsome-game-everyone-is-talking-about in a shelve on your local supermarket and move on to buy that tackle and hooks you were planning to :/

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