Yes, I just tried using Notion again the other day after being annoyed with Obsidian Projects and even with only a couple entries on a notion database page, it took MINUTES to load, on web and on the desktop version. Uninstalled it immediately and went back to Obsidian.
I’m completely done with Notion now. It was great when it was new, worked well and did what it advertised. But now it has too many features and I feel its core functionality has really suffered.
Currently unemployed. I wake up whenever I wake up, no alarm clock. Read a bit or browse social media until I decide to get up. Grab my coffee and then hop on the computer where I watch YouTube and play a game until the coffee kicks in and I need to poop. Then go for a run shortly after that.
It’s been almost two years since I was layed off. Unlike him though, I have not been working on side projects. This time has actually made me realize that I do not enjoy software, even working on projects for myself and as a hobby.
I’ve slowly spent all my savings, moved back in with my folks, and still don’t have a job. It’s rough. I have no idea what I wanna do in life. So I decided to join the navy recently, to give me the next 4 years to figure it out.
You are on hn so let me ask you this: Are/were you a nerd? Did you play around with systems, use linux for fun etc.?
If yes, you just might be depressed or haven't realized that a job might be shit anyway.
If no, interesting though that you are aware of hn (i have to assume a certain interest because i know plenty of software people avg ones, not being aware of hn at all).
That's not really the qualifier you think it is. I've been coding and hacking stuff up since I was nine. Corporate programming is a great perversion of the kind of stuff I find fun to do in my spare time. In order to be successful you not only need to be a good programmer and curious person but you also need to know how to navigate corporate power structures (explicit and implicit), you need to be somewhat of a therapist helping people tap into their true problems, and above all else you need to be excellent at compartmentalization.
similar boat. Been doing software for 15 years and I used to love it. Learning new languages, side projects, contributing to open source, you name it. At every job I became less enthusiastic, like the technical problems all became the same. The actual problems became ones of people, management, customer, product, etc., and I had no interest in solving those. So this year I decided to not code... and I don't miss it at all. However I have no idea what I will work on next.
I was in the army before uni - it was grueling but awesome. You'll find your way fren
Every time I’ve flown for the past few years, my ID fails to scan at TSA. Don’t know why but every time it’s happened, the TSA agent will just call over another TSA rep, they will look at it, and then say I’m good to go ahead. Never knew these other methods existed, I’ve never been asked to confirm my identity a different way.
This is why I’ve given up on software. I loved it, made side projects in college, got my computer science degree, worked for a couple years and then got laid off early in 2023. It’s been a year and a half and I still can not find a new job. I have not coded in god knows how long, I don’t find it enjoyable anymore. In fact I almost despise it. I’ve decided to join the military instead.
Merely for your consideration: if you are able to pass the security clearance then you can "join the military" by applying to CISA or the NSA, as I am certain they'll be glad to get all the computer science help they can
The bad news is that I'm mostly talking second-hand since I only know people who have gone that path, without having tried it myself
#1 reason I use proxy cards to pay for subscriptions, all I have to do is pause or delete the proxy card and then I won’t have to worry about complicated cancellation processes
I use obsidian daily and while I love it, I do feel it’s got lots of flaws. Mostly I feel the development team is pretty opinionated with some of its choices, especially regarding its tab management. I find myself annoyed by a lot of the basic functionality and am constantly having to add custom css or plugins. I’m grateful that the plugin community is pretty large, but it sucks needing so many plugins just to make the program useable in the way I want to use it, rather than obsidian having more options and toggles built in.
Some plugins are Another Quick Switcher, File Explorer++, Force note view mode, Remember cursor position, and Open in New Tab. These plugins mostly chance existing functionality to work better how I would expect them to or add some QOL features. Obviously I don't expect Obsidian to implement massive features like Dataview, Kanban, Projects, Calendars, etc.
One of my biggest complaints though is Obsidian's tab management. Notes are always opened in whatever tab I am currently in, even if the note is already open in another tab. I know that I can just hold shift or ctrl to do a new tab but I forget to do that all the time and would just love a toggle to always open notes in a new tab, or swap to an existing tab that note is already open in.
The default quick switcher I feel is also very bare bones. I can't search by tags for example.
I would also love it if obsidian had native markdown table support similar to how the advanced tables plugin works. I know I can just use that plugin but it does not work in live preview edit mode which is what I prefer to use. I don't know if that's an Obsidian issue or a plugin issue.
I'd also like to see tree style tabs or just vertical tabs in general similar to vscode's open editors feature. I tend of have many tabs open and am constantly switching around.
Overall though maybe I'm just using Obsidian wrong or its just not for me, but out of all the note taking apps/markdown editors I've used, Obsidian is the closest to perfect that I've seen.
EDIT: I should add as well, I do appreciate that Obsidian allows for plugins and custom CSS. I'd rather be able to change the things that I don't like rather than be locked into the default functionality. However with some of these plugins being implemented in "hacky" ways as their description says while also not being updated in quite some time, I do wonder how much longer they will continue to work before an update breaks them permanently.
This. Coupled with the fact that all their promotional material looks like renders and there isn’t a single photo/video of someone actually using it, makes the whole thing feel sketchy.
I’m completely done with Notion now. It was great when it was new, worked well and did what it advertised. But now it has too many features and I feel its core functionality has really suffered.