Tanking World of Warcraft raids. I had severe depression and low self worth. I played the game all the time to cope. I decided to get good at tanking because I heard it was a challenge. I ended up getting fairly decent, started tanking raids and people would ask me on more and more raids saying I was a great tank.

This gave my self confidence a boost and I figured if I could do that (which everyone said was hard) I could get good at coding (which everyone also said was hard.)

Stopped playing wow, started coding all the time. Today I earn very, very decent money as a software dev. (and I don't have depression anymore)

Thanks World of Warcraft.

Biggest hurdle? Probably other people telling me no.

- My parents wouldn't let me go to college to study CS because 'this computer thing is just a fad and you won't be able to make a living off it'. Instead they pulled me out of school early and made me go study automotive so I could be a mechanic like my dad.

- At 22, my boss at my first tech company job heard I was taking Java classes in the evenings. Told me to stop wasting my money because I'd never be a programmer.

- Got a job at a game development company as a document writer. I could code by then. When I was done with my work I'd look for bugs and send the solutions to the programmers so they could submit them. Tech lead found out and flipped out. Said I wasn't allowed to look at the code because I 'hadn't been hired as a programmer'.

Today I'm a senior developer and pretty happy with my career.

When people tell you that you can't do something, that should be all the motivation you need to work your ass off to prove them wrong.

How many of you at larger companies (at LEAST a 3 stage build pipeline) are using Docker? Are you finding its solutions worth it?

Go to meetups and talk to people. Give presentations at meetups if you can. Get involved in community projects. Love coding. Use your downtime to study new stuff.

When talking to potential employers be positive and enthusiastic about your technology.

EDIT: Oh, a few more. Don't seem desperate for a job. Without saying anything, potential employers should feel like you have other offers and they're being evaluated by you. Ask questions about their company if you get an interview.

Try to give off an air of being in control and having a number of choices in your carreer (even if you're living off ramen every day).

The pressure should be on companies to hurry up and snap you up before another company does.

Be honest but a little spin won't hurt.

Confession.

Got invited to a company party by a friend. I forgot they worked for Comcast. Realized when I got there it was a Comcast sponsored event. Got told on the way not to engage in any anti-Comcast rants at the event.

Couldn't really backout, so went anyway. Feeling guilty, dirty and like a complete sellout.

I never finished highschool, let alone college and I earn more money than most of my friends and people I grew up with. I have a job that I actually love and I'm excited to go to work every day.

I get to work with smart, open-minded and motivated people every day.

My mind is sharp and alive and I never feel like I'm running out of new and interesting things to learn and explore.

!rant

So has anyone added 'x years of experience in Intercal' to their resume? Bonus points if you convinced a recruiter it was a viable and sought after language.

Seriously, css is the worst thing to ever happen to computers. That's with full acknowledgement of the existence of windows vista as well as IE.

VS Code. By far. It's a testament to how good it is that I'd actually use a Microsoft product.

My job requires us to use Mac. I've spent the week figuring how to get stuff done on it.

My best description of trying to code on mac is that it's kinda like having to extract your mangled penis from a blender before you bleed to death... Except you can't look directly at it, you have to wear a VR headset that's linked to a camera in the corner of the room.

And you can't use your hands directly you have to use an incredibly stylish and ergonomic looking steering wheel to control a robotic arm. The robotic arm has its own artificial intelligence and it desperately wants to help.

Unfortunately it doesn't understand anything about what you're trying to do and it keeps leaping to incorrect conclusions about what you want from it.

Everyone tells you it'll get better, but you're still in intense pain and your penis is still stuck in the blender.

My wife.

The game 'Factorio' should be required gaming experience for all programmers. Best way I've ever seen to learn load balancing and how to break down complex operations into smaller, manageable operations.

That feeling: When you see a piece of code and you're like "I can do that in half the number of lines..."
And so you spend the next 45 minutes redoing something that was working perfectly.
Except now it's a convoluted and unreadable demon child that appears to writhe on the screen before your very eyes and cause madness and hatred in all who view it. But.. it works in 3 lines now instead of 7... and you don't need 4 of those local variables that you did before... and even though it's completely impractical because no sane mortal (including yourself - barely) can actually read it, it's still yours and you're proud of it.

Those days at 1:49AM when your code finally runs and does exactly what you wanted it to do, and you want to scream and tell someone, but you realize that even if anyone was awake, they'd never understand why you're so excited. They'd probably just pat you on the back and say 'Uh, ... good job...?'

I hate react so much. I hate it with the fiery rage of an old testament god. I tried to like it. I wanted to like it.

Unfortunately I picked up Angular (2). I'm now used to a framework that has you covered for most things. That has logical methods of laying out your app. A router that's actually built in and makes sense.

I'm used to writing HTML in the templates, not some horrible abomination of XML that's pretending to be HTML and just waiting to pull off its mask and smack you across the face with its penis while telling you what an idiot you are.

React apps all seem to be cobbled together in a different way. You have to go hunting for the logical stuff you expect to be there.

Let's not even get started on the tome of dependencies it needs to get itself off the ground, all written by vastly different developers from different planets with completely different life goals.

I hate it. The more I learn about it the more I find myself yelling "WTF!" while shaking a fist at the wall, hot tears of rage steaming down my pudgy cheeks until my wife comes running into the room and consoles me with my head on her bosom.

...and I just started a project that will have to be seen through to the end, using.. react.

Seriously, fuck you react, I hope you die of herpes.

When you want to get stuck into coding, but you just KNOW someone is waiting to interrupt you. It could be 5 minutes from now, 10 minutes or 45. You don't know. You can hear their breathing and their footsteps, just waiting for you to get deep into your code.

So you sit there looking for pointless short term crap to do until you know it's clear to start work.

If I select a rant to read more or comment on it and then go back to the rant feed, the app shows no rants. I have to go out of the devrant app, clear it from phone memory and then reopen the app.

It has been this way for months now, despite updates. I can't view devrant in the browser on mobile because it just tells me to use the app. If I request desktop site I have to deal with the horrible abomination that is a desktop site viewed on a mobile screen.

Please for the love of god get someone to fix it!

"This computer thing is just a fad. In a few years everyone will have forgotten about it."

Why does CSS never work the way you'd expect? All I want to do is align something to the bottom of a div. No. Will not happen. You'd think it might be something simple as 'v-align' or 'align: bottom' or 'fucking put it at the bottom: now;'

No, it's never that simple. I try every result I can find from googling. Nothing. Simply does not work.

How about trying to keep a div to a square when you resize the page? That should be simple? height = width right? Fuck you. Ha hahah, no you have to implement some horrendous arcane hack involving fake elements and other bullshit.

You finally fix one thing and everything else you had working is now broken.

...and then some fuckwit comes along and goes "Oh, CSS isn't hard..." and it takes everything you have not to beat them to death with your rubber duck.

What the hell is wrong with CSS? It's not even programming! It's just pure, sadistic hell! FUCK CSS!!!!

Guys! It's 'code' NOT 'codes'.

I check the newbie's code. [correct]
I check the newbie's codes. [not correct]

Programmers write 'code'. It's an uncountable noun so we cannot pluralize it.

Spies use 'codes'.

Ok this has been driving me crazy for a week but I've been too embarrassed to ask. How the hell do I get an avatar?

I've checked in my profile. I've clicked the empty orange circle where other people have avatars. I've googled. I've read posts with the 'avatar' tag. I've waited till I had more rep. (I have 171 now)

How do I get an avatar?!? /sob

/rant
When you spend longer trying to work out why your background <div> refuses to cover the entire page, than you spent coding an entire user-authentication system in TypeScript for Angular 2.

When you code a bunch of stuff while horribly stoned, and the next day it all still works really well, but you cannot for the life of you figure out how or even why it works.

/sigh

When you say something about machine learning that's cool, and someone responds with a quote from Terminator or some other Hollywood bullshit that attempts to terrify everyone with an irrational fear of technology.

I'd like to give a shoutout to the best tool I ever had when I worked in hardware and had to troubleshoot ethernet. The "RLFLTWKW". (The Really Long Fly Lead That We Know Works)

My friend that I worked with long ago just dug it out of a drawer and sent me a photo so we could remember the days when trying to figure out why Mavis couldn't get on the network anymore could be resolved by our faithful friend "TRLFLTWKW". I miss you buddy. You made life so much better.

I wish I had an equivalent to you for coding.

That moment you've been dreading for a week, when you've exhausted every single resource you can in finding a solution and you've put it off way longer than you ever should have.

When you might have to ask on ...StackOverflow...

So you spend an hour agonizing over your post. You double check your google searches in case there is some info out there that you may have missed. You include code samples. You check your spelling and grammar and you any 'fluff' from your post.

Finally you hit submit and watch as nobody responds, but the downvotes just keep piling up... and damnit you have no idea why.

Jason Bourne movie:
"Use SQL to corrupt their database!"

In my head: "Seriously? That's like saying 'Use a computer to hack them!', 5 bucks says someone is going to say "ENHANCE" on a blurry photo."

3 Min later. 'ENHANCE!'"