[BadassFractal]

After about 7 years of professional programming, every day I'm in awe at how much I don't know and how much understanding it would make my life better. The amount of stuff I want to learn seems to increase daily. I can't see myself be even close to being "done" in 10 years.

There's so much depth, beauty and challenge to be found in language design, API design, architecture of scalable distributed systems, design of human and computer-friendly tools, refining one's mastery of various programming paradigms (working daily with Clojure and Haskell will keep you busy and interested for many years). Learning about OS internals, graphics programming, networking etc is mind-blowing. Find inspiration in the great work of those who came before like all the people featured in the AOSA books. If you ever reach the point where you've done everything you can as an individual contributor, you still have a lifetime ahead of you mastering how to inspire, coach and pass on wisdom to the more junior members of the team, share your shokunin-like fervor for software with them.

[ams6110]

I often feel the same way. The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. It's like one of those dreams where you are running as hard as you can but every time you look up you're farther from where you want to be. It's depressing.