Hope everything went well with your surgery and your recovery is speedy. I found HN because Slashdot changed their UI one too many times and programming.reddit didn't offer very high quality discussion.
I work as a software developer, mostly doing web apps (currently in RoR and node). In the past, I worked on simulations of vehicular networks in grad school. I found that far more interesting than web development, but only because of the problem domain and not necessarily because of the work itself. There's very little sense of "pushing the envelope" in most web development, and while the simulations I was writing and running weren't exactly doing that either, I had more sense that I was actually producing something than I get by burning through code to resell flights and hotel bookings.
I enjoy software development, but I feel conflicted about it at times. I used to be a professional landscaper, and I found my life much more intellectually fulfilling then when I compare it to now. There's something to be said for a job which only requires bodily presence but leaves your mind free to do whatever you want, and I really enjoyed that. I did not, however, enjoy working for subsistence level wages under constant threats of being replaced by immigrant labor - noone wants to work in an environment where they're treated as if $7 an hour is an outrageous wage.
I work as a software developer, mostly doing web apps (currently in RoR and node). In the past, I worked on simulations of vehicular networks in grad school. I found that far more interesting than web development, but only because of the problem domain and not necessarily because of the work itself. There's very little sense of "pushing the envelope" in most web development, and while the simulations I was writing and running weren't exactly doing that either, I had more sense that I was actually producing something than I get by burning through code to resell flights and hotel bookings.
I enjoy software development, but I feel conflicted about it at times. I used to be a professional landscaper, and I found my life much more intellectually fulfilling then when I compare it to now. There's something to be said for a job which only requires bodily presence but leaves your mind free to do whatever you want, and I really enjoyed that. I did not, however, enjoy working for subsistence level wages under constant threats of being replaced by immigrant labor - noone wants to work in an environment where they're treated as if $7 an hour is an outrageous wage.