Maybe give it a go if you haven’t yet? I’m also not a fan of web apps and prefer native applications, but it runs really well and is super impressive!

This looks insanely cool!

I think he makes the mistake of assuming that every person has a similar life experience to his own. I’ve read his biography, and apparently he was extremely intelligent and acted like an adult from a very young age. It could be that he hated being seen as a child and saw himself as a fully functional adult in a transitioning body.

In everything he says and does there is an extreme single-mindedness: his extremely strict free software and privacy related ideas show this. I think he applies a similar single-mindedness to a clearly nuanced situation, namely that of conscent. The nuance of power dynamics and coercion probably don’t play a role in his experience and therefore he ignores it. This results in the very wrong and dangerous opinions stated in the article.

I am not saying this to excuse any of his opinions, this is just my interpretation of where it might come from. It’s sad that the people around him are seemingly unable to educate him on these topics, but I believe it might be the same stubbornness that made him the proponent of the Free Software movement that is causing him to not mentally grow on this specific topic. It’s a truly unfortunate situation, but one that should not be ignored and people who oppose him because of these opinions are right to do so.

Hey,

I am an electrical engineer, but a natural at coding so after I got my degree I was quickly pushed by my employer towards more programming related projects. I was pretty good at it, but I suffered from similar issues as you. The race seems never ending and there’s always a new thing to know just around the corner, with seemingly no space or time to learn stuff in depth or create a decent and understandable architecture and documentation. I also really missed the social and emotional aspect, which seemingly is not how all people function: a lot of my colleagues were perfectly content to spend 8 hours a day racing through libraries and editors and calling it a day. In the end I got a pretty severe depression and anxiety (those issues were already underlying but the work triggered them again). It took a long time to start recovering again, but now I feel OK most days and I have beautiful moments and value in life. After a period of therapy I started volunteering as a bike repairman parttime (as this is the only workload I could handle) and that was really nice. Now I actually started studying again to become a librarian or work in another function for public information and I feel that it suits me well at the moment. No one can tell what the future will bring, the librarian thing might work out or it might not, but there is always something new to do. Don’t spend your life trying to be someone you’re not. Don’t try to do what you’d love to be, try to love what you are.

This got a bit serious, but this seems like a safe space to do so :).

Just look at issues in software you use.

Start with a simple project. Clone the code and try to build it (this is already a very big step in software development, so don’t be angry with yourself if it takes a while). Poke around in the code, change some stuff, get a feel for the architecture. Then see if there is an issue that you could help with. Ask questions on the projects communication channel(s). Most developers will be kind if you ask for help or advice.

Good luck! 🤞