[patio11]

I was at dinner with a young lady who is now my girlfriend a few months ago, and she asked me my plans for the next morning (Saturday). I told her that I was going to be programming (it was during the last week or two prior to AR's launch).

She said: Of course, after all you are a businessman. The job comes first.

I said: No. Not first. Not second, either, unless first is "all the things I love in life."

I had a really really awful no-good bad day today, buisnesswise. It was easily my worst ever on that score. But you know, in the greater scheme of things, if the code fails and the disk dies and my database goes to meet the great truncate in the sky, it will be very stressful for a few weeks, but I'll still have my family, my friends, my girlfriend, my faith, my health, etc.

We've got a lot of pressure and responsibility running companies, but at the end of thhe day, it is a job. You don't live to work, you work to live.

[singular]

Though I agree that love and family come above all else, of course, I do quite dislike the whole 'it's just a job' attitude. Isn't the whole point of all this that we do what we love and are passionate about?

I, for one, adore programming and would do it even if I was working as a bank clerk.

Obviously there are awful days and truly crap aspects of running a business, and even when coding, as things you love aren't a pure, crystalline edifice of positivity but necessarily embody suffering within them. What counts is the net meaningfulness of what you are doing, I think. And I believe when you are doing something you love it pays infinitely more than it costs.

I say this with all respect, as you have achieved amazing things, and are clearly a very competent (far better than me) hacker.

[patio11]

I love my job and find a great deal of meaning in the work, but there is no level of Yay This Is The Best Job Ever that would make it more important than those other things. (It is my favorite job ever. This morning aside, I practically bounce with enthusiasm about it. I am probably spoiled for doing anything else. But if it were ripped away from me, I'd still be living a very blessed life.)

I appreciate the praise, but folks overestimate my skill at hacking. I'm good at it. There are a lot of people better at it than me, including on HN.

[singular]

I definitely want to emphasise that I agree that love, family, etc. are the most important things. Only people who have never had such could disagree with that :-)

Just wanted to highlight that I think it's important that work be more than simply a means of obtaining money to fund pleasure in your spare time, that it can be more than that, which as your reply indicates, you clearly agree with.

The vast majority of people (talking about those lucky enough to live in the very privileged western world) have the attitude that work is a misery that you cannot avoid, and I think it's important to emphasise that there is another way :-)

You've created a successful business through hacking, your analyses demonstrate you are very sharp + competent, I think that alone qualifies you as a great hacker. And your humility only makes me think that more so :-)

[JoachimSchipper]

> folks overestimate my skill at hacking

Actually, I was under the impression that you were mainly known for BCC, which doesn't look that technically sophisticated (of course, it does require good marketing/SEO/etc, and your candid posts and expertise are very welcome).

Care to brag a little?

[patio11]

Most of BCC (and AR, and my day job work, and my client work) is fairly pedestrian, programming-wise. I can usually eventually get code to function to accomplish arbitrary objectives most of the time. Yay.

My limited claim to fame with regards to programming is that I am good at designing and passable at implementing systems/code which improve marketing outcomes: A/B testing, various types of optimization, scalable content generation, conversion tracking and optimization, etc. It turns out that this is a) not nearly as common as being good at programming and b) anywhere from "spiffy" at BCC scales to "changed the way we did business" (quoth a rather happy client, who you've all heard of).

[tptacek]

The Bingo Card Generator is not the part of BCC that is technically sophisticated.

[JoachimSchipper]

Didn't you describe it as a "hello world project hooked up to a random number generator" at some point? ;-)

I do recall that Patrick has written a supposedly-neat A/B testing framework - is that what you're referring to?

[I'm not trolling, just honestly curious!]

[tptacek]

The bingo card generator is, in a sense, "hello world" hooked up to a random number generator. The mechanisms built around that small piece of software to demonstrate and provide value are what's sophisticated about BCC.

[jcsalterego]

"...and my database goes to meet the great truncate in the sky" -- I'm stealing that.

[lani]

me too. kindly accept my flattery : )

[wccrawford]

I have some foreign language partners, and when I tell them I'm going to a programming conference they always ask if my co-workers are going, and each time I have to explain that I'm going for fun, not for work. (Of course, I program at work, but sometimes the conference isn't applicable to my job.)

To be fair, I'm pretty sure US-based friends would ask the same except that most of them are technically inclined, so it's not usually necessary.

[lelele]

> You don't live to work, you work to live.

Not exactly: you don't live to work, but you don't work to live. Working is living, it's just that living is not just working.

Keep things balanced, and everything will be going better and better.

[madaxe]

Disagree. Plenty of us live to work, because working is living. If you're not creating and producing, you're merely existing.