I've been doing the (unpaid) solo thing for years, and I'm almost sure I'm gonna give it up now. I built Tiled Text (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tztmgCcZaM4&feature=youtu.be...) while working at a grocery store and dealing with a repetitive strain injury, and it was a miserable, awful experience. I designed and built this 'abstract visual debugger':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvfMthDInwE while my savings slowly ran out, along with my girlfriend's patience for being ignored. And I've spent a ton of time teaching myself mathematics and programming language fundamentals, and writing on new perspectives on programming tools/languages (
http://westoncb.blogspot.com/2015/06/why-programming-languag...) —with no real prospects for academic recognition (to say nothing of remuneration), with my historically poor academic record.
I think for some people this is the only thing they want to do, and it works out well enough for them. I felt like that was me for a long time, but I've begun to wonder how much of this sort of dedication is motived merely by... baser qualities.
In any case: I salute you, solo programmer! —but be careful, eh? It's possible there's a simpler lifestyle that would make you happier.
I think for some people this is the only thing they want to do, and it works out well enough for them. I felt like that was me for a long time, but I've begun to wonder how much of this sort of dedication is motived merely by... baser qualities.
In any case: I salute you, solo programmer! —but be careful, eh? It's possible there's a simpler lifestyle that would make you happier.