I am a passionate programmer and an advocate of open source software. I like to use technology to improve people's lives. I like to create things and share them with the world.

I am a passionate programmer, an advocate of open source software,I have always been fearful. In the past, it may have been because I was young, but now, I am no longer that young, and I still find many things that scare me.

I am increasingly worried about my future as a programmer.

As I have grown older, I have begun to be unable to work overtime. I started spending more time with my family instead of sitting in front of the computer (even so, they still complain). I provide some help in the local education committee community and also organize open source interest groups to participate in activities.

I am thinking about why I used to spend so much time all on programming. Massive amounts of programming. That was when I longed to deeply study a class library, a framework, or a technology.

The steeper learning curve of today's technologies makes my tolerance lower and lower. Various new technologies are exciting because of their novelty, but they ultimately turn into one debate after another. I am increasingly unable to tolerate this clamor full of marketing hype. What I value in technology is stability and clarity.

I was once very interested in JavaScript. I once spent 5 years developing an open source project, 95% of which was JavaScript. But I never felt that I had a good grasp of various JS technologies. My understanding of many emerging popular JS technologies (ES6, Angular, Ember, Shadow DOM, Module systems, etc.) is very shallow. Many companies now require knowledge of AngularJS in their recruitment. I worked hard to learn it, but the frequent upgrades and incompatibilities of this technology, as well as the plans for version 2.0, made me completely disappointed with the framework. My interest in rich client applications has completely reversed. Now, what interests me most is computing on the server side, just as it was in 2004.

In my formal work, I mainly use Python for server-side processing. I like the language, but I still feel that I haven't truly mastered it. I have 15 years of accumulated PHP development experience, so I am usually very familiar with PHP, but I don't feel that way when using Python. I don't feel that I have a comprehensive grasp of the modular system. And I really haven't figured out its Class mechanism. What exactly is a generator? How does it work? I am very confused.

Have you ever tried to build a system on AWS? It has nearly a million buttons, settings, options, and new terms that I don't understand. I have no idea how the systems inside it run at all.

These difficulties will eventually be overcome — as long as there is enough time and enthusiasm. But enthusiasm determines how I allocate my time. I don't have enough enthusiasm now to use my spare time to change this passive state. There are more important things in life — things unrelated to programming — that I need to do.

You know what? I used to be a graphic "designer." Really. In 1999, my skill level was enough to deserve that title on the Web. I once designed a CD cover for an independent music recording studio. Around 2005, the so-called "excellent designs" circulating online at the time came from my hands. A few years ago, I stopped putting the "designer" title in my personal introduction, because it sounded a bit ridiculous.

In the early years, when I was still the sole person responsible for a web store, everything was easy. I configured Apache, PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and so on myself. I wrote the server-side programs myself. I wrote my own HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I got hands-on with all of these technologies. I really liked them.

But when I was in a team, things began to change. I miss the old ways. I miss being able to tinker with HTML and CSS myself and watch them turn into software products from my hands. I miss being able to tinker with server configurations and see if I could squeeze a little more performance out of PostgreSQL. Now, I feel my work is too monotonous. It has become specialized. In my daily work, there is simply no opportunity to get in touch with those things anymore.

I worry that this "web programmer" job is beyond my abilities, and I worry that my skills are shrinking.

Where will I be in 10 years? I don't know. I hope I can still master enough technology to earn a salary. But in fact, the only thing I deal with now is JavaScript, and I know less and less about it.

I hope I still have skills I can be proud of. However, I don't know where the road is.

Source:Programmer Website