I initially thought this article was satire - poking fun at how easy programmers really have it on balance. But no, it’s just a contentless, envy fuelled moan from a position of privilege.
Take a step out of the FAANG-SV-HN salary distortion field for a moment, and the London financial one too for the matter, you will clearly see that 55k is a great salary in the UK. Far more than the average.
If you picked a career that you don’t innately enjoy because you thought it would make you rich, and it’s not, then that’s on you.
Perhaps, if you shared a single caravan with hundreds of other people. But other than that I do not think it’s alike at all as you are not dependant on a crew for subsistence nor is your freedom to move/explore restricted in a caravan. Either way both can be very fun holidays if you are willing to see past class prejudices.
Not the OP but I would describe my anxiety in identical terms.
When I feel the doubt about past memories/decisions start to creep, I whip out my phone and make some brief notes (usually keep one document per trigger). I will just write a few bullet points detailing what facts I am sure of right now along with the reassurances I am telling myself in that moment.
Then, next time it happens I open the same note, read my previous thoughts and relax into it knowing I’ve been here before.
I suppose it’s just an anxiety journal, nothing novel, but it works for me. Over time as I accumulate more facts the effect sort of compounds and simply knowing I’ve got the notes is enough to push the anxiety away.
I have the attachable keyboard stand that sits comfortably on my knee when I'm on the train. I can type as fast on that as I can a laptop. Honestly with a half decent IDE/dev toolchain it would be a fantastic little lightweight setup for coding.
I've had some luck using http://continuous.codes to write small C# and F# apps/games. I wish it were more actively developed because there is so much potential there.
Is this an anecdote? E.g. I assume you are calling this a tremendous risk because you have seen it first-hand negatively affect your own kids mental development?
Whilst I agree with the sentiment of less tech = probably better for young kids, your comment reads as FUD. 15 minutes a day watching youtube is probably fine and will likely have minimal effect on development compared to other factors.
If introducing a functional language was the aim (EDIT: that's my reading of the motivation here) then, given the political context described, I can't help but feel a better choice would have been F#.
It ticks, or half ticks, most of the points in the "Benefits of Using Haskell" section. Whilst also coming armed with C# interop and integration with the .NET ecosystem in which they were already invested.
Take a step out of the FAANG-SV-HN salary distortion field for a moment, and the London financial one too for the matter, you will clearly see that 55k is a great salary in the UK. Far more than the average.
If you picked a career that you don’t innately enjoy because you thought it would make you rich, and it’s not, then that’s on you.