I've been "Doing nothing" at work for a couple of weeks now, and it's freaking me out. Yes, I have asked for tasking, but the guy in charge is ... I just don't know.
I love having no task assigned. Means I finally have time to do code maintenance. Upgrading dependencies, fixing bugs (there are always some), clearing TODOs left in code, improving performance, improving dev tooling or monitoring configuration, cleaning up unused code, improving documentation, ...
And the best part is that since it's not an assigned task, nobody is waiting for it, so I'm under zero pressure.
Sadly it doesn't happen that much as we're always pushing for more new features out.
In SCRUM though if that stuff isn't in the sprint you'll probably get backlash from QAs as it needs testing etc, or questioned why you're bringing in that stuff.
Majority of the things I've mentioned don't need QA. Improving performance of an existing code is fine as long as it passes the existing test suite. Dev tooling / Monitoring is for devs only. Unused code is unused, just needs review from another dev to confirm. Documentation is for devs only.
And I work on the backend in a smaller company these days. Our backend code doesn't pass through QA, we just write tests and another backend coder reviews the tests if new tests are written. QA only handles frontend.
Why? The moment you touch the code you become responsible for it. Can't count how many times I fixed something on a goodwill and then became responsible for it.
The testers have the latest build, and have not reported any bugs. I don't even know if the project I am working on is even going to be funded after a few more months. I am just in this sort of limbo that really sucks.
I would try to learn some new tech. Definitely not something you can do in a vacuum with no goal for months in a corporate setting, but e.g. learning more about a programming language you already use, or some libraries, some tooling, you can easily spend a few weeks.
After that, yes it'd make sense to find something else.
As someone who's been there and let their skills atrophy and had his career slide backwards...act on that freaking-you-out feeling sooner rather than later.
I will agree with this ... to a point. An endless journey, often fraught with physical and/or emotional pain, without any kind of satisfying destination, would be completely miserable.
The point is that you have to enjoy what you're doing. If the journey is completely miserable, fraught with physical and/or emotional pain, then just stop. Go do something else that you actually enjoy.
I have said this before, and I'll say it again. Our current, and foreseeable future, AI is more akin to the computer on the Enterprise NCC-1701* than it is to any sort of sentient being.
> "JavaScript and its ecosystem is an environment where browser wars, framework trends, and open-source maintainer preferences reshaped every few years."
In general, I hate frameworks, and not just JavaScript frameworks. Firstly, for the reasons she describes; they do change quite frequently and break stuff. Secondly, I don't see it saving any more time than using several nice libraries. Not only do you have to learn JavaScript, Java, C#, etc. but you have to learn the framework syntax as well. I will, obviously, use a framework at work when I have to, but for my personal projects, I try to "hand roll" as much as I can with vanilla languages.
This is why I like things like React and Astro, for the most part it is just JavaScript in the end. Other than JSX which is already familiar from using HTML and has applications beyond React
The real question is would a Godzilla incursion be good for property values (novelty, tourism attraction, remove some housing stock) or decimate them (safety concerns, change the spirit of neighborhoods).
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