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by eneveu 5452 days ago
Nonetheless, I hate Java. It is a handy mental shortcut, one that has yet to lead me astray. My belief is that the problems for which Java-the-language is the solution are problems I don't want to work on, and that I don't have enough time in my life to address the problems I do want to work on, so I should simply develop a Java allergy that kicks in whenever I see the generics syntax and that causes my eyes to water until I flee towards fresh air. It works well.

This idea of developing an "allergy" / "hate" for Java reminded me of http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-... ( HN discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2464764 ). More specifically the part about "culling":

Culling is the choosing you do for yourself. It's the sorting of what's worth your time and what's not worth your time. It's saying, "I deem Keeping Up With The Kardashians a poor use of my time, and therefore, I choose not to watch it." It's saying, "I read the last Jonathan Franzen book and fell asleep six times, so I'm not going to read this one."

[...]

What I've observed in recent years is that many people, in cultural conversations, are far more interested in culling than in surrender. And they want to cull as aggressively as they can. After all, you can eliminate a lot of discernment you'd otherwise have to apply to your choices of books if you say, "All genre fiction is trash." [...]

The same goes for throwing out foreign films, documentaries, classical music, fantasy novels, soap operas, humor, or westerns. I see people culling by category, broadly and aggressively: television is not important, popular fiction is not important, blockbuster movies are not important.

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I also have this avoidance mechanism. I don't have enough time to learn about each programming language / framework / paradigm, so I kind of hate / ignore some of these, without really knowing them (PHP, .NET, Windows, "enterprisey Java solutions"...). Not sure if it's the right thing to do, but I still have plenty to learn with the languages / frameworks I am interested in...
1 comments
mechanical_fish 5452 days ago
What is sad is that I have culled so many things that I used to love, that I very likely still love. I used to be known among my friends as someone who watched a lot of movies. I don't watch movies anymore. Or TV. Or play computer games.

I'm not even certain why this has happened. As best I can figure, I am trying to create something and am still stuck in the phase where I figure out what the hell it is.

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eneveu 5452 days ago
Interesting. I actually did the same. I haven't owned a TV since a few years. I often go to the theater, but I've stopped watching movies and series at home around 2-3 years ago. Same with computer games. This roughly coincides with a) getting my first job and b) discovering HN.

I seem to have replaced these hobbies with reading HN, reading books (lots of non-fiction), and toying with technical stuff (programming languages, libraries, security, ergonomy...).

While I learn a lot with these "productive" hobbies, I sometimes think I might be missing out on my previous hobbies... The NPR article made me realize I might have "culled" too much.

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