Just wanted to thank everyone for the responses. lots of good ideas.
As a follow up a question. Many of you said you pursue your interests and passions, exploring them in personal projects. Feels weird to ask but, how do you identify/kindle these interests? I feel like early in my career they came fast and easily, but now my interests often take me away from the computer screen.
Hm, I don't know how to answer that. Maybe some examples will help?
For example, I'd kind of like to learn about some web programming. I have some ideas for a photo file browser/slideshow application that would be useful for me, so making a web app to do that is an idea I could use to explore some web framework.
Another example, I'm into Street Fighter 6 lately. I've been thinking about how it handles input for choosing moves in a way that "feels good," and how to specify hit detection, handling move priority, etc. If I wanted to learn a new language or graphics library, I'd probably try to write a simple fighting game to explore those challenges. This would just be a toy, not a serious project. The end goal would be to learn whatever library or language, and then forget about the project, except as an example of something I made with the library/language.
So... I guess I just kind of keep a list of stuff that seems useful/interesting in my head, and grab something from that list when it's time to go learn something new.
> but now my interests often take me away from the computer screen
Yes. I'm the same age, though I don't have any kids, and I feel the same way. With programming as a job, it's stopped being a hobby for me. I kind of miss it. Now I do guitar and woodworking instead :) but that doesn't help with the career.
"When I turned 30-ish and had a kid and a wife and a mortgage… I lost a metric ton of interest in computers and computing."
- This is exactly what I've been feeling recently.
Same here. I think what I realized is that coding is not a thing. Rather, it is a tool which enables you to do other things.
About 13 years in, I pivoted in two interesting ways.
1. I started looking far more at the backend, infrastructure, and how to design efficient end-to-end systems (from UX, through the stack, to the infrastructure).
2. I realized that I have a passion for building products that take complex things, and simplify them for the masses.
So, I was doing more "building", but I was also creating new "products". And that flipped a switch inside me.
4 yrs at current company, flexible job with a small team. family commitments definitely affect my ability to focus beyond my day job.
If I could summarize how I feel out of my depth. When I encounter something I'm unfamiliar with I often feel like I've limited my self and played it safe. I feel I should be diving into these uncomfortable feelings and learning new things but it also seems vast and intimidating. Which often has me questioning why I want to do this work at all in the first place?
As for a new job, I applied to some new roles recently and found the interviews challenging. Which obviously is it's own thing I need to work on.
To be specific, Marie Kondo didn't advise rolling clothes but folding them in a way that they stood upright. That way you can see, at a glance, what's in your drawers. It wasn't about space saving but easy access.
Our little guy just passed his first birthday and it's been such a fun and stressful time. I think the fact that you're concerned about being a good dad means you'll do well. For me anyway, that feeling of pressure grew but so does the enjoyment and fun! Congrats and enjoy it!
But you choose the trade routes individually. Its not natural, that's the player's choice in where the roads go (except for Rome: all roads lead to Rome lol (special power where every city auto-builds a road to Rome in the early ages))
It's not completely manual. If you have cities A, B, and C and you have an existing route from city B to C, and you add one from A to C, it will automatically choose the optimal route by utilizing existing roads and connect the new city from there.
That's not what the original commenter is talking about.
The "decision" to build a road from A to C was not really a top-down decision from the medieval periods. Rome built roads in a top-down manner that sometimes benefited the Empire as a whole... but Feudal Lords built roads in a smaller and more selfish scale.
The growth of roads at that time was more akin to animal paths (animals deciding to travel the same path as other animals: because the well-trodden areas are flatter and easier to walk). Its an organic growth, rather than a top-down planned growth.
I seem to recall playing a few games where roads grew naturally like this, but I've forgotten their names by now. Feudal lords built Roads more akin to Death Stranding (where the player builds a road to try to connect to the online community. Once the road exists, you gain the benefits of the entire community's efforts)
So people are talking about that kind of "locally selfish but community building" behavior. And also in a management simulator and... not whatever Death Stranding is (First person Post-apocalyptic UPS simulator?)
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Different mechanics for different eras of history. Again: Civ6 probably is akin to some Emperor declaring a road should be built between two major cities. But Medieval / Feudal society didn't have top-down edicts from an emperor (at best: maybe from the Pope but... the Pope didn't have that much power). Having a simulator for the medieval time-period could be an interesting gameplay mechanic.
I was also outside Ottawa(West) at the time. I remember hearing the trees collapsing as they failed under the weight, it was like mini explosions. We were out for about 48 hours but our neighbours' line to the road down their long driveway failed and so they were out almost 2 weeks.
