I apologize in advance for the downbeat flavor of this post.
I have been doing Progress for over 10 years now, 9 of which have been Chui.
Probably for the past 3 years I have been feeling like being a Progress Programmer is not challenging me enough. I have pretty much seen and done most things but really I am writing code now that I was writing 10 years ago. It seams to be "if yada yada then display yada yada .." same old same old.
I am a very good programmer but I feel my talents are wasted on this stuff.
I love new development but those tasks are few and far between. The reality is firefighting legacy code that was written in the 80's day in day out. On top of that most legacy code was written so very badly which just irk's me. I thought the solution was to move to other jobs but it ends up being the same thing different location.
Now I am 40 I feel very trapped, I don't have the opportunities to move to something new and moving around (other locations) is very painful for wife and kids, we have done it so many times. I am at the peak of my salary range, I am unlikely to be able to earn more money, so it is not a factor.
I really don't know what to do, but I just can't keep doing the If Then Display day in day out for another 10 years. I feel like I want to do something different, but there is nothing else I can do and I can't afford a big pay cut because mortgage, credit cards, car payments etc.
I feel very stuck and I suppose this is a fairly lame attempt at shouting for help. However, I would like to hear from anyone out there who is in or has been in a similar position / mind frame as me. If you got past this and have figured it all out, please share. I would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has been doing Progress for a long time and still enjoy it and can still keep up the desire to do more.
I long to feel happy about Progress once more.
Many thanks
Gary
I have been doing Progress for over 10 years now, 9 of which have been Chui.
Probably for the past 3 years I have been feeling like being a Progress Programmer is not challenging me enough. I have pretty much seen and done most things but really I am writing code now that I was writing 10 years ago. It seams to be "if yada yada then display yada yada .." same old same old.
I am a very good programmer but I feel my talents are wasted on this stuff.
I love new development but those tasks are few and far between. The reality is firefighting legacy code that was written in the 80's day in day out. On top of that most legacy code was written so very badly which just irk's me. I thought the solution was to move to other jobs but it ends up being the same thing different location.
Now I am 40 I feel very trapped, I don't have the opportunities to move to something new and moving around (other locations) is very painful for wife and kids, we have done it so many times. I am at the peak of my salary range, I am unlikely to be able to earn more money, so it is not a factor.
I really don't know what to do, but I just can't keep doing the If Then Display day in day out for another 10 years. I feel like I want to do something different, but there is nothing else I can do and I can't afford a big pay cut because mortgage, credit cards, car payments etc.
I feel very stuck and I suppose this is a fairly lame attempt at shouting for help. However, I would like to hear from anyone out there who is in or has been in a similar position / mind frame as me. If you got past this and have figured it all out, please share. I would also be interested in hearing from anyone who has been doing Progress for a long time and still enjoy it and can still keep up the desire to do more.
I long to feel happy about Progress once more.
Many thanks
Gary