A few weeks ago, I had a moment of pretty serious Imposter Syndrome. A coding meetup group, called Rust-NYC, decided to host its meeting at the Flatiron School, where I spend my days taking classes. A coding meetup logically seemed like the a great place to meet likeminded folks. It was only after the meeting had started, and I started chatting with people, that I realized how far in, over my head, I had gotten.
It turns out:
1) Rust isn't just a clever name for the group (in its reference to the short lived nature of hardware/in that the group also never sleeps), it's also the name of the language they all practice, and meet to discuss.
2) Rust has fewer formal applications in the market place - which means the folks there are also devoting their hard earned free time (and free brain space) to more coding and programming and syntax and refactoring and debugging and and and...
The imposter syndrome set in when I realized that this kind of meetup (despite its delicious pizza and finely curated selection of complimentary beers) wasn't how I wanted to spend my time. Did I need to change "how I spend my time"?
Am I the problem?
At the post-meetup bar-based decompress, some of my (above) fears were assuaged: while everyone in the group did work in software based tech/coding/programming/development - not everyone who works in those fields needs to have those same interest as hobbies in order to be successful. That was a huge relief.
It was one of the first times in my life I had closely inspected the difference between my abilities and innate understandings, and the limitations of those around me. The instructions sheet was my best attempt to bridge said gap.
It is still, I was reassured, very possible to lead a balanced life, where your hours between 9:00 and 5:00 are devoted to code, and the rest of your hours are devoted to whatever your heart desires. Which, as a train of thought, led me to ponder: what else do I enjoy doing, and how many of these hobbies share a common overlap with an interest/inclination/ability toward software development?
I'm sure the list is long. But I've definitely noticed a few things in my own life. Being here, I've also noticed some overlap with my classmates. While I'm confident that learning Rust as a new language would help with my technical skills, I also know myself well enough to feel the burnout coming from a mile away. So, what do I find solace in instead, and how does it compliment (or contrast)?
I'm sure the list is long. But I've definitely noticed a few things in my own life. Being here, I've also noticed some overlap with my classmates. While I'm confident that learning Rust as a new language would help with my technical skills, I also know myself well enough to feel the burnout coming from a mile away. So, what do I find solace in instead, and how does it compliment (or contrast)?
One personal anecdote that came to mind is the time that, as a teenager, I set up my family's stereo. I actually had a ton of fun doing it; it felt like an important project that, as a sixteen year old, I was stoked to be tasked with. There were a few different components to it (a tv, a receiver, a few video game consoles and dvd/cd/lp players), and so I had set about organizing and connecting everything in what felt like the most logical way to me. Upon completion, there was just one problem: nobody else could figure out how to use it. My family made me write out a set of (step by step) instructions (ie: to access this media player, change these settings via the remote), and when I left for college they stopped using it altogether. 
Its direct replacement 😢
It was one of the first times in my life I had closely inspected the difference between my abilities and innate understandings, and the limitations of those around me. The instructions sheet was my best attempt to bridge said gap.
Brewing
Later in life I developed a pretty serious interest in fermentation, and wound up working in a Home-Brewing Supply shop. Again (actually, more like day after day), I encountered information gaps that needed to be bridged. Not only information gaps - but process oriented information gaps (first step, second step, hold off and wait until...).
Wouldn't you know it, but in my time at the homebrew shop I also met a lot of customers who were, between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00 (drumroll...) engineers! Although very few of them worked directly with fermentation, the mechanical inclination, plus interest in the creative process, seemed to link those two fields very naturally.
Wouldn't you know it, but in my time at the homebrew shop I also met a lot of customers who were, between the hours of 9:00 and 5:00 (drumroll...) engineers! Although very few of them worked directly with fermentation, the mechanical inclination, plus interest in the creative process, seemed to link those two fields very naturally.
Music
One other common interest/hobby that comes up a lot is playing music. As your author, I can volunteer that I've been playing at least one instrument or another since I was in elementary school. I have never been particularly good at any of them, but I've always enjoyed my time learning and collaborating in that medium.
Similarly, a good friend of mine has been working in web development for a decade now (and helped found this site). For even longer than that, he's had an interest in music, and although we've never successfully played music together, we have both wound up playing the same instrument at times, and different ones at others.
showoff
His current pursuit is a road I've never travelled, although it's one I'm very impressed by: the pedal steel! This is an instrument for which there are at least three different ways to play any given note, all three of which involve both feet and both hands. His instrument "only" has four pedals (each one for a different "function"), but it's the kind of instrument players can customize to a very full extent, including customizing the "functions" of additional pedals (sets come with up to eight, apparently).
Dance
Similar to music, one of my classmates has spent a lot of time in the world of dance; competing, choreographing, and performing. He also has a blog, and wrote an excellent piece about his firsthand experiences in both worlds, and his take on the similarities. While his experience is mostly in the world of hip hop dance, there are a lot of people with analytical minds who seem to take to the repetitive nature of folk dancing.
Contra Dancing, for example is a dance that is designed (or "programmed") to repeat and return dancers to the positions they started in. One group in Eastern Europe (named the AlgoRythmics) took this analogy a step further and has created a series of videos in which they dance-demonstrate how different programmed algorithms work.
If one likes to program to enjoy the feeling of both exercising creativity and exert control on their surroundings, it would make sense that pursuing the cooking of food (which can be its own level of precision and stress, with or without a delicious reward) could be a rewarding hobby - or career. Two of my classmates have a background in the food industry (one has helped run kitchens, one has graduated Culinary School - to name a few of their collective accomplishments).
Something Else?
In talking to various people in the field (both professionals and hobbyists), there are no shortage of fascinating personal-interests that come up. One of my classmates has compared programming as a whole to solving logic puzzles - the concept of which has already spawned a popular site! A Technical Coach for FlatIron School has studied Japanese and found the "syntax" of that language helpful for understanding the commands and intuitive logic of Ruby. While this may not be unique to programming, I have never met a coder who didn't enjoy taking a break from the screen and going out hiking once in a while.
So, I guess the answer to my question above is: a lot of things! There seems to be an inclination toward the semi-technical and the structured; things that need practice to be fully grasped let alone executed well. Fortunately for us all, the number of pursuits that fit that description is large! Rest assured, fellow imposters reading this article: one does not need to devote their entire brain to code to be a good programmer. Carry on with your varied life pursuits!
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