And that's putting the article in perspective by referring to someone with talent and experience in music, a universally enjoyed skill that also happens to combine very well with typical feel-good scenario's where people are more inclined to appreciate your work anyway.
Like someone before me, I can think of hundreds of jobs that require skills with exactly the same opaqueness as programming: high finance, fundamental science, designing and fixing machinery, wiring electronics/floorplanning piping, genetics, law making, the list goes on and on...
There may very well be reasons why programming increases your chances on depression, but the fact that its hard to explain, hard to appreciate by outsiders, and doesn't get you laid, really aren't the root causes. If that were true, almost everyone would be suffering from depression.
One side note I have about the guitarist analogy is that looking at the music industry, it seems to me that incidence of depression, addiction, suicidal behaviour, etc is much higher among pop stars than it appears to be among high-profile technical people, which also invalidates the premise that 'recognition of skills' is such an important factor for depression.
> There may very well be reasons why programming increases your chances on depression, but the fact that its hard to explain, hard to appreciate by outsiders, and doesn't get you laid, really aren't the root causes. If that were true, almost everyone would be suffering from depression.
Like someone before me, I can think of hundreds of jobs that require skills with exactly the same opaqueness as programming: high finance, fundamental science, designing and fixing machinery, wiring electronics/floorplanning piping, genetics, law making, the list goes on and on...
There may very well be reasons why programming increases your chances on depression, but the fact that its hard to explain, hard to appreciate by outsiders, and doesn't get you laid, really aren't the root causes. If that were true, almost everyone would be suffering from depression.
One side note I have about the guitarist analogy is that looking at the music industry, it seems to me that incidence of depression, addiction, suicidal behaviour, etc is much higher among pop stars than it appears to be among high-profile technical people, which also invalidates the premise that 'recognition of skills' is such an important factor for depression.