On 27/07/14 01:42, Adam D. Ruppe via Digitalmars-d wrote:
Maybe this is arrogant or whatever, but my view is that I'm kinda maxed out as a programmer. Sure, there's a handful of specific things (like framework method names) I don't know and some concepts I don't know the names of, but as for like revolutionary new lessons, I don't think I've actually learned anything like that directly related to programming for a pretty long time.
There are many ways to grow, and the most important one need not necessarily be programming.
Personally, I tend to find that growth as a programmer tends to come as a consequence of problems that need to be solved with programming. Reading about new ideas and techniques is great -- of course I do this -- but it's actually finding a problem of my own that they are relevant to which really makes them sink in and allows me to feel their value.
Then there's things that are not programming per se but that feed into it -- the research literature on many different topics, or topics such as the social and psychological dynamics of how people use software, or collaborate on software, or interact when using software. Or, as Walter has already pointed out, the ways in which new hardware, and new hardware environments, change the ways in which software can be written and needs to be written.
Put another way, while sometimes it's useful to think of programming in a somewhat isolated or theoretical sense, most of the time I find it more inspiring to think about the whole range of things that programming interacts with.
And of course, ultimately, sometimes it is very good to take a break from learning more in a particular area and go and work on other things for a while. We all need fun, and we all need stimulus that comes from unexpected things that are not part of our habitual activities.
