Personally, I don't think that having healthy relationships as a developer is much different than having healthy relationships as anyone else. As with any other technical job, it can be hard to explain exactly what your job is, but a bit of humor and an ELI5-style explanation goes a long way.
One thing specific to programmers is the ability to whip up a little program to help people. Someone spends an hour every day retyping lower-case data in uppercase? Take ten seconds and write them a program. Someone complains how they always forget to shut down their computer and waste electricity? Write them a widget to shut it down at 1am each night.
When I take a bit of time to write programs for people I care about, people are usually very grateful and vastly overestimate the difficulty of whatever I just did. As always, relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1425/
Author here, I agree to an extent. As I said in the "Spend Time With Them" section, a lot of developers also program as their hobby. In fact, you pretty much have to program in your free time in order to keep up with all the new paradigms and frameworks.
Jobs that have been around a lot longer, like construction or accounting, allow you to just leave your work when you go home.
In that way I think developers face a unique challenge. We all know how prevalent burn out is in the industry, it's tough making sure relationships don't burn out as well.
Agreed. It's known that one can program outside of work for a hobby (like many other jobs), but treating it like it's special probably creates the rift some may experience
>Our brains automatically group similar memories together in order to save space. As developers, years can feel like weeks if we don’t actively pursue different experiences.
This hit me hard. Feels like the years have just slipped on by since I graduated university.
Not particularly sure how to stop it though...maybe a few more years and I can just take a few months off and travel or something?
My wife and I are both programmers, and as a bonus we also work at the same company :) We may have an easier situation as our specialties are different (I'm a mobile developer and she works server side) but we have never really had any issues at all. As long as both sides keep open minds to information and drop any defensive attitudes, it works out great. Basically, when talking about programming and work, we treat each other as a resource and colleagues rather than a romantically involved couple. It has also made us better programmers as we have any extra point of view when tackling our problems.
It's pretty OK for my wife and me. The pros are we can easily talk about work, questions and issues. It's nice, that we can go deep into details and we don't need to try to explain what we do like to a 10 y.o. person. We can share some practices. I am backend focused, and my wife is a frontend developer so we can learn something new from each other. We can both understand that we we sometimes to code at home.
Another pro is we don't have a big gap in salaries being more or less well paid (in Germany).
The drawbacks are that you are quite limited in scope, you don't learn something new outside of your programming domain. The mindsets are pretty similar: sometimes I think my wife is too logical, and we have a similar way of thinking after many years in the profession, which can be a bit boring.
It's both a blessing and a curse. As a bisexual man in a relationship with another male software developer the way I understand my partner is something that trumps my wildest dreams. On the other hand, it's very easy to let software development get the upper hand in the relationship, especially when your day consists of waking up, going to work together, literally working back to back at the same startup for 9 to 14 hours, and then going home to sleep. I do feel knowing what my partner does all day makes me connect to him better on an emotional level as well, which is a really nice bonus.
I'd say in general it helps the relationship, but it does not come without pitfalls.
I can tell you from experience that if you do not put effort into remaining cooperative peers, then it can get pretty ugly with each person attempting to earn respect in a more competitive way (that turns out looking like braggadocio to the other party). I am sure that isn't everyone's experience, but it was mine and I am trying my damnest to never fuck that up again because when your significant other(s) are programmers (especially in your domain), you can express yourself fully and the points in this article are essentially moot.
Hinders. What you're trying to find is someone who's got similar goals/ambitions for how they want to live their life in future, and who has a good sized surface area overlap with you on how to spend their free time now.
Dating someone in the same field gives greater likelihood of finding that, but there's other ways to do it too. People who went to similar schools, people in related fields, people who hang out at similar social events...
Your work is one field where you can find overlap, but there's lots of others. My fiancé works in a completely different field, but we have similar preferences in how we spend our spare time. I'd have never met her if I restricted myself to programmers (she's in conservation and events; an odd mix to say the least).
My wife and I are both devs. It's, for the most part, no different than any other relationship; you get out of it what you put into it. One thing I did (am still trying to?) learn is that sometimes she wants me to be a rubber duck instead of actually helping her solve a problem. I try to anticipate a point in the conversation when I can ask which I'm supposed to be.
from the responses it sounds like there is no one answer for everyone with this. It depends on the person that you are and the person that your partner is.
I don't think this problem is unique to programmers. Everyone who works a lot can get into this situation. If you spend 60h a week doing anything, whether you code, or manage people, or lay pipes or sell houses or cut hair, you'll be so absorbed in your work that you can't imagine other people will understand all the intricacies of what you do; and frankly, in the time that's left of the week, one might just be too exhausted to spend quality time with friends and family...
LPT though: have friends at work but don't flirt with them.
I had a really good friend at work for a while but it always had this flirty undercurrent. We both had SOs, but enjoyed the "office wife/husband" thing (my real wife actually knew about it and was not jealous). Anyway, the flirtationship thing makes you as vulnerable to criticism as an actual relationship, so the occasional sarcastic tirade or bad mood day really hurts. Long story short, we're not only no-longer-friends (this happen, I've worked at the same place for so long some friendships are cyclical); we can't talk to each other or work in the same open plan office. It's a small wonder no one's been fired. Ultimately the drama/good feeling ratio doesn't work out.
I would say your caution shouldn't only apply only to flirtatious relationships, but rather any interpersonal relationship at work that becomes too casual.
I work in a small shop and was hired as the third developer, about 4 months after developer number two. Of course, Number 2 and I became friends pretty quickly and we would hang out outside of work on occasion. That is, until one day when some totally insignificant disagreement resulted in threats of physical violence against me. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy that, we never hung out again. I brought the comment up with management (the company owner) and as far as I can tell nothing came of it.
Now, as our company and development staff has grown the owner has put this same guy in a managerial role that I have to answer to, and because of our history, it's becoming more difficult to stay productive in our interactions.
In other words, friends in the workplace can be a good thing, but if it backfires, and especially if you're both candidates for advancement in the same department, the repercussions could have you polishing your resume.
I strongly disagree with this one, although I'm not sure if my reasoning is broadly or only personally applicable. The last thing I want to do at the end of a long day of work is recap what I did. Even in the best-case scenario of a day full of victories, it's just exhausting to try to relive all of them with the added burden of explaining the decade-plus knowledge base you'd need to understand why Problem X was so hard to solve. I'm much happier with a base of other interests to talk about after work with a non-programmer instead.
When I look back, good times with family and friends brings happiness. :)
When I look back at the bad program written, feel like 'Did I write this so studpidly?' brings sadness. :(
Is this really true for everyone? I sacrificed my relationship because I prioritize my projects and I've never been happier. I can't imagine getting into another since it would mean compromises I'm not willing to make.
That's a good tip to discuss the work with family when working at home on weekends especially, as they have no idea of the problems a developer faces when working remotely on weekends.
I don't think I really get how to have relationships. It seems a lot of developers fail bad at relationships.
I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms.
However, I think there is a greater cultural attack on technological professionals. I feel like we are devalued as some sort of machine that cranks out code. Many play into this as well. I don't think it is healthy.
> I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms.
This statement is more accurate if you remove the comma. What you wrote makes a blanket claim about all people (which is highly unlikely to be true for even a majority). Without the comma, it's a useful heuristic for what kinds of people you should avoid so that you can have a more fulfilling circle of friends.
There is some evidence that developers are better at relationships. When it comes to marriage they have a relatively low divorce rate of around 10%. It can be partly confirmation bias that the worse relationship outcomes are most obvious to us.
There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty in math and algorithms, because it's certainly there. But taken too far, it can become self-validating by judging other people as lacking value, and refusing to see beauty in other people with different interests.
This might be part of what you view as an attack on technological professionals, where we're stereotyped as people with only an interest in computers/math and have no interest in actual people.
I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms.
Try seeking out people who also see beauty in maths and algorithms and you might have a better experience. Finding people who have similar values to you goes a long way in having good relationships (as long as you don't entirely limit yourself to like-minded people).
I read articles like this and always find it fascinating that none of them suggest simply stop doing what you do for work (or at least limit to a certain extent) and enjoy other things in life. You want to have a healthy life? Get away from the monitor and get outside. It's that simple no matter what you do.
> Call your grandma, friend, dad, girlfriend, anyone
A bit offtopic, but the author seems to assume you are a straight coder guy. This was probably not his intention though. Why not replace "girlfriend" by something more neutral, like "your better half"? Being inclusive doesn't cost much, really.
I think everybody got the point. The dude was writting blog about keeping healthy social life, not sexuality. If we keep splitting it to atoms, it would be pretty distracting experience for writter of any blog post. Being a little bit inclusive doesn't cost much, but it could cost a lot if you go by your logic for every other thing...
I sometimes wonder how much my life would be different if I never got into this. Programming is such a big part of my life now. I frequently consider how much of my brain power goes to programming; and I have to say it's about 20%. If there were five of me, one of them would basically be a computer.
I wonder what that fifth of my brain would have been thinking about for the past 10 years, if not programming. Maybe it would have been dancing, or painting, or soccer. Instead of context switching into thinking like a computer, it'd be how to move my body around or how to meld colors together. I feel like that would lead to a much more fulfilling life.
I used to program for fun in middle school. It was probably halfway through high school when I stopped programming for fun. It was always that little nagging voice in the back of my head: Play it safe. Programming is an in-demand field! You're good at it! Look at all of that awesome shit you made.
At this point, the only "hobby" I have is programming. I don't even know what else I like anymore.
I couldn't imagine consistently working 60+ hour weeks. Occasionally for deadlines which nearly always are big presentations I'll work up to around 50 hours, but its rare and definitely not sustainable.
[+] [-] owenversteeg|9 years ago|reply
One thing specific to programmers is the ability to whip up a little program to help people. Someone spends an hour every day retyping lower-case data in uppercase? Take ten seconds and write them a program. Someone complains how they always forget to shut down their computer and waste electricity? Write them a widget to shut it down at 1am each night.
When I take a bit of time to write programs for people I care about, people are usually very grateful and vastly overestimate the difficulty of whatever I just did. As always, relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1425/
[+] [-] Rafert|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karlmcguire|9 years ago|reply
Jobs that have been around a lot longer, like construction or accounting, allow you to just leave your work when you go home.
In that way I think developers face a unique challenge. We all know how prevalent burn out is in the industry, it's tough making sure relationships don't burn out as well.
Thanks for the feedback!
[+] [-] tranv94|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rjbwork|9 years ago|reply
This hit me hard. Feels like the years have just slipped on by since I graduated university.
Not particularly sure how to stop it though...maybe a few more years and I can just take a few months off and travel or something?
[+] [-] bowmessage|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jleehey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] playing_colours|9 years ago|reply
Another pro is we don't have a big gap in salaries being more or less well paid (in Germany).
The drawbacks are that you are quite limited in scope, you don't learn something new outside of your programming domain. The mindsets are pretty similar: sometimes I think my wife is too logical, and we have a similar way of thinking after many years in the profession, which can be a bit boring.
[+] [-] superice|9 years ago|reply
I'd say in general it helps the relationship, but it does not come without pitfalls.
[+] [-] tzakrajs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petewailes|9 years ago|reply
Dating someone in the same field gives greater likelihood of finding that, but there's other ways to do it too. People who went to similar schools, people in related fields, people who hang out at similar social events...
Your work is one field where you can find overlap, but there's lots of others. My fiancé works in a completely different field, but we have similar preferences in how we spend our spare time. I'd have never met her if I restricted myself to programmers (she's in conservation and events; an odd mix to say the least).
[+] [-] JustSomeNobody|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramblenode|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thisone|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakobegger|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thanatropism|9 years ago|reply
I had a really good friend at work for a while but it always had this flirty undercurrent. We both had SOs, but enjoyed the "office wife/husband" thing (my real wife actually knew about it and was not jealous). Anyway, the flirtationship thing makes you as vulnerable to criticism as an actual relationship, so the occasional sarcastic tirade or bad mood day really hurts. Long story short, we're not only no-longer-friends (this happen, I've worked at the same place for so long some friendships are cyclical); we can't talk to each other or work in the same open plan office. It's a small wonder no one's been fired. Ultimately the drama/good feeling ratio doesn't work out.
[+] [-] fluxquanta|9 years ago|reply
I work in a small shop and was hired as the third developer, about 4 months after developer number two. Of course, Number 2 and I became friends pretty quickly and we would hang out outside of work on occasion. That is, until one day when some totally insignificant disagreement resulted in threats of physical violence against me. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy that, we never hung out again. I brought the comment up with management (the company owner) and as far as I can tell nothing came of it.
Now, as our company and development staff has grown the owner has put this same guy in a managerial role that I have to answer to, and because of our history, it's becoming more difficult to stay productive in our interactions.
In other words, friends in the workplace can be a good thing, but if it backfires, and especially if you're both candidates for advancement in the same department, the repercussions could have you polishing your resume.
[+] [-] Grishnakh|9 years ago|reply
I'm a software engineer, and a hetero male. Why would I want to flirt with other men?
I frequently wish I had gone into another career (probably medical) so I could try out this flirting with coworkers thing I keep hearing about.
[+] [-] jdminhbg|9 years ago|reply
I strongly disagree with this one, although I'm not sure if my reasoning is broadly or only personally applicable. The last thing I want to do at the end of a long day of work is recap what I did. Even in the best-case scenario of a day full of victories, it's just exhausting to try to relive all of them with the added burden of explaining the decade-plus knowledge base you'd need to understand why Problem X was so hard to solve. I'm much happier with a base of other interests to talk about after work with a non-programmer instead.
[+] [-] ryanbertrand|9 years ago|reply
This had me laughing: (No, changing your Vim colorscheme doesn’t count as a “different experience.”)
[+] [-] jbb555|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tranv94|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FLUX-YOU|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ganesh_hobbeez|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|9 years ago|reply
Is this really true for everyone? I sacrificed my relationship because I prioritize my projects and I've never been happier. I can't imagine getting into another since it would mean compromises I'm not willing to make.
[+] [-] skeletonjelly|9 years ago|reply
Good relationships are a key part of being happy.
Bad relationships...not so much
[+] [-] aadilmfarooqui|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gersh|9 years ago|reply
I see beauty in math and algorithms. I'm sick of people, who just see such things only in dollar terms.
However, I think there is a greater cultural attack on technological professionals. I feel like we are devalued as some sort of machine that cranks out code. Many play into this as well. I don't think it is healthy.
[+] [-] munificent|9 years ago|reply
This statement is more accurate if you remove the comma. What you wrote makes a blanket claim about all people (which is highly unlikely to be true for even a majority). Without the comma, it's a useful heuristic for what kinds of people you should avoid so that you can have a more fulfilling circle of friends.
[+] [-] TheCowboy|9 years ago|reply
There is nothing wrong with seeing beauty in math and algorithms, because it's certainly there. But taken too far, it can become self-validating by judging other people as lacking value, and refusing to see beauty in other people with different interests.
This might be part of what you view as an attack on technological professionals, where we're stereotyped as people with only an interest in computers/math and have no interest in actual people.
[+] [-] dasboth|9 years ago|reply
Try seeking out people who also see beauty in maths and algorithms and you might have a better experience. Finding people who have similar values to you goes a long way in having good relationships (as long as you don't entirely limit yourself to like-minded people).
[+] [-] amelius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sakopov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daemonk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jean-Philipe|9 years ago|reply
A bit offtopic, but the author seems to assume you are a straight coder guy. This was probably not his intention though. Why not replace "girlfriend" by something more neutral, like "your better half"? Being inclusive doesn't cost much, really.
[+] [-] Philipp__|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SmellyGeekBoy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dudul|9 years ago|reply
And BTW, "girlfriend" could apply to gay coder chick.
[+] [-] spurgu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] what_the_hell|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kraftman|9 years ago|reply
The author is just giving examples of people you can talk to, if it just said 'Call your girlfriend' that would be different.
[+] [-] vilmosi|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] clevernickname|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pikachu_is_cool|9 years ago|reply
I wonder what that fifth of my brain would have been thinking about for the past 10 years, if not programming. Maybe it would have been dancing, or painting, or soccer. Instead of context switching into thinking like a computer, it'd be how to move my body around or how to meld colors together. I feel like that would lead to a much more fulfilling life.
I used to program for fun in middle school. It was probably halfway through high school when I stopped programming for fun. It was always that little nagging voice in the back of my head: Play it safe. Programming is an in-demand field! You're good at it! Look at all of that awesome shit you made.
At this point, the only "hobby" I have is programming. I don't even know what else I like anymore.
[+] [-] urbanxs|9 years ago|reply
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