I Am Stepping Back From Programming
22 Oct 2025 - fancyfinn9
Welcome.
If you clicked on this because of the title, then I think you already know the story. If I or somebody else sent this to you as an explanation for my reduced activities, hopefully this clarifies some stuff.
First some backstory: over the past year, I’ve had various things interrupting my life quite rudely (and never asking before they did!), so in the past 12 months I’d say I was able to do programming for about 4 weeks total. With programming being my main passion, this did not particularly help my life and my mental health, given that I now didn’t have anything to do in my free time, really.
During those months, I occasionally got the chance to delve deeper into my other passion: music. When I was able, I would spend hours listening, composing, and playing too. I ended up with way too many unfinished arrangements and compositions, a handful of finished ones (including a full brass band arrangement which I hope to have performed soon by my brass band), a lot of musical knowledge, and I also ended up a member of a brass band.
This September, I transferred schools from my old, relaxed one to a relatively more demanding one. This was primarily because I made the decision to further study music in 3rd level education, after my rediscovered passion for it.
Shortly after I started in my new school, the opportunity for programming returned again. The problem is, I now have very little free time, and when I do have an hour or two I am torn between programming and music composition/arranging. Both take a few hours - if not days or weeks - for one big, finished, polished result (particularly music arranging, which includes hundreds of relistens to a track). And because I hope to make a career out of music, and have a lot of projects on deadlines, I must sadly choose it over programming.
If I had more free time, I could probably juggle them both out. If they were both just hobbies, I could split my time evenly between the two. But until I get more free time during school breaks and holidays, I must choose what will benefit my future best.
This isn’t a final goodbye - or at least, I hope it’s not. I’ll still be lurking around, and hopefully able to contribute to my regular projects every now and again when I have a break off school.
Thank you for reaching all the way down here. I hope I haven’t bored you with personal details! But I also hope that you now understand why I had to make the difficult decision that I did.
Thank you to everyone who I worked closely with over the past years, particularly in JMA. It’s been an honour!