For me, a huge chunk of each project’s fun was planning. Going through my first two prototypes in Sketchup (rather than in real life) was a massive amount of fun. That part really was not so different to hacking code, really.

The physical work itself is then completely different to software engineering. Nothing is simple — every step of the project presents some unique problem that you have to work around carefully. Maybe you forgot to include the width of the saw in a measurement. Or your stock has a knot in exactly the wrong place. Or you didn’t plan the assembly in the best way to optimise for clamping. Or you drip glue awkwardly and have to clean the first of six benches up before oiling. Or you want to add a shamfer in an awkward place to a piece you’ve already partly assembled.

Imagine having to stop work every few hours to hone the edge on an IDE that’s gone blunt. Imagine running out of 8mm if-statements (dowels) and having to improvise some more so you can peg a project together.

There’s no homogeneity with a natural product. Everything is slow and methodical with few opportunities to hack / test / prototype. You have to think and solve problems that you never thought would happen in a new kind of way because you can’t roll back or undo.

Above all, there are many things you just cannot automate. Sanding up the frame of a pergola getting it ready for oiling is going to be O(n) at best, with only ever a single processor to throw at the problem which itself is hard bounded by mealtimes and hours-in-day.

I love it because it’s not like software.

Very true with wood unfortunately.

I have been a software engineer all my working life, and I absolutely despise woodworking or anything that smacks of DIY. I find them unbelievably stressful and frustrating partly because I can see how I want things to be, they never work out nearly that good and I can never fix them.

It sounds radical but it feels important to my mental health to keep my woodworking physical an analog as possible. Now, I'm still a power tool junkie so I'm not about to give up my table saw or planer.

It's now got to a point that the requests, and "He can build that" comments to friends are not accompanied with the trademark eye roll.

All the points the author hit ring true - planning, design, tool choice, etc have similar parallels to code and systems I work with during the day. But, I can cook meals for my family knowing that I built that space, then sit on the deck watching the wind in the trees knowing how many pieces of pressure treated lumber are holding me up and how it felt putting them all together. I never get that visceral connection using a web app.

  Once my wife learned of my plans, the requests for custom pieces started rolling   in.  Knowing that whatever I build has an eager recipient awaiting it is rocket fuel for motivation.

  And since it's my wife asking for it, it's easier to justify buying the tools I "need".

There seems to be some connection here. I think it's just that hackers love making stuff, and woodworking is one of the most ancient and fundamental ways of making stuff. Materials and equipment are plentiful and easily obtained. A basic wood shop can be put together in a garage without special facilities. No special qualifications are needed, outside of time and practice. Almost anyone can get started, but the skill ceiling is high.

I got out of HTML email a long time ago, thankfully.

I also find the products of my work aesthetically pleasing or useful. I am very happy, grateful to be able-bodied to do any amount of woodworking. I hope everyone else gets to enjoy something like that feeling for even just a minute.

I got into woodworking as my first real job. It’s such a great pastime too, though. Just like this post says.

Something I highly recommend if you find woodworking too expensive is to look into what you can do with basic hand tools and found wood. Try making spoons from green wood, for example. If you can get into it, it’s practically free and incredibly gratifying.

There are plenty of cool things you can make and even gift to people without a single power tool.

It started as building project boxes for my Rasp Pi projects, and scaled up from there.

In fact, when we were putting together a highchair, one of the legs was the wrong parity (we got two of Left leg instead of R+L), so I pulled it out to the drill press and drilled the proper holes. The company gave it to us for free for our trouble, which basically paid for the drill press.

Also built small bookshelves for the nursery to match the wife's "Vision", coat hangers / key rack near the side door. All kinds of useful things!

These days, I have my own little workshop for carpentry and welding when I'm not writing code. I think it's all about the fact that you're using your hands, it "feels" more involved and intimate than designing software sometimes and it's relaxing.

When you work all week in 20 dimensional non-Riemannian manifolds with torsion, it's really nice to come back to Euclidean 3D space and make wood chips the weekend!

Woodworking scratches that "build something" itch.

Plus, it has a high SAF (spouse approval factor). If I spend a Saturday writing a software tool, my wife is wondering why the lawn wasn't mowed. If I spend it building a coffee table, she's delighted :D

It's to the point where I have to either start rotating out pieces or attend an art show and try to sell some. Just running out of wall space in the house. To attend an art show means I think my work is good enough that someone might pay for it and same as with programming, theres some imposter syndrome happening here.

We'll see...

For a lot of people, software engineering is a craft. It's not exclusively about completing a task as it is working on something, getting into a flow state and designing/building something elegantly for a specific outcome. Woodworking is no different really and probably why so many software engineers like it as a hobby too.

Interestingly enough, I remember visiting and touring the https://www.lie-nielsen.com/ showroom. The business has been around for years, but from what I remember, they mentioned developing a really strong community of developers/engineers over the last 10 years or so.

Something with wood

It's a short, dumbed-down version of "screw it, I'd rather do something with wood instead" and every dev recites it every once in a while when they encounter strange bugs or other annoyances.

Whereas woodworking is highly tangible and physical, which can make you feel connected to the work.

The same can be said for many other types of craft work too...

I like to take photos because when I press the button a photo is taken, it's not going to output an error that will need a debugger to solve. I like to draw because when I move the pencil on the paper, a line appears, instead of the paper having an error message that requires me to contact their support to solve. I also don't need to update my paper to be compatible with my pencil.

I like those things because of the certainty that a specific action will lead to a specific result.

What would I do if I was born a hundred years ago, before computers were invented?

And the answer is now clear:

Find something to build.

My great-grandfather was born ~110 years ago and became a master machinist. Kept those giant steam locomotives functioning. Grandfather was a construction worker who went into civil engineering and two of his brothers made airplanes in their garages, father is an electrical engineer turned software engineer and now I’m in software as well. Hopefully the party isn’t over just yet.

If I lived a hundred years ago I’d like to think I’d be building as well.

I can think of a few reason why software engineer appear to like woodworking.

- They are overrepresented on the internet, me, a software engineer who mounted a shelf a few years ago is more likely to exchange woodworking tips on the internet than my granddad who was an actual 8 fingered woodworker.

- If most of the people you know are software engineers, the ones who like woodworking are likely to be software engineers too, a simple statistical bias.

- Woodworking is technical work, software engineering is technical work, it is more related than, say, team sports, dancing or organizing birthday parties (some software engineers do that too of course, but it is not something they are known for).

- Software engineers earn the right amount of money for that kind of hobby. Woodworking is rather expensive, good tools are not cheap, neither is the space your workshop takes and the wood, especially now. But is not as expensive as racing cars and flying helicopters.

You build a working environment of your own (with your choice of VSTs, presets that you have saved...), you definitely have way too many tools, you have a finite monetary budget (although the toughest limitation is your time and your sanity), you have the fastest feedback loop ever, and hopefully you'll have some users eventually :_)

I've got a Shopsmith, which is a reconfigureable multi-purpose machine. It's a drill press, turning lathe, table saw, jigsaw, and several others. You turn different locks to swivel the machine around and attach well-engineered implements to make the single motor power a different woodworking configuration.

As an engineer, it's fantastic. You get to make the machine do what you want. And you are rewarded for being careful and measuring things as you reconfigure, because the swivels and joints introduce the possibility of mis-alignment. Mis-alignment would show up in the finished product (the cut wood). So being fussy pays off!

For programmers, it's great.

I really like this article though, and relate completely. I do metalworking and fabrication (building race cars) as a side hobby because having a tactile, physical thing to tinker with helps cool off from the daily software work.

I told the second engineer about the first one, after he told me he'd started getting into woodworking. I was laughing, like: "be careful, you're next!" and sure enough he was.

https://nondot.org/sabre/Woodworking.html

Who loves deleting code? Everyone who’s been around long enough, that’s who!

The furniture thus far as been mainly functional - not that it is unattractive, but it is all very form-follows function. I rather like that in general, but also see my mistakes and room for improvement. But then I'm probably moving soon, and may well need to rethink and downsize furniture anyway.

Grandfather was a farmer, father a polytechnic teacher, … i have learned to work with wood, metal, cows, roofs, ducks, cars, … and computers.

The last one paid more in our era. I still do the others when they make sense.

I find woodworking quiet and beautiful. Metalworking, not so much :)

It isn't valid only for woodworking. Anything that isn't very complicated and doesn't take a very long time, will do. Even repairing old cars or bikes.

I'm pretty sure sanding takes up 90% of time spent on my projects.

Are there any active communities for that?

carpentry ~= software engineering (within an organization)

I think woodworking is attractive to software engineers because its akin to building side/toy software projects. Autonomy, building from scratch, requirements/AC's self-defined etc.

Software engineering professionally is more like carpentry/trades. Carpenters work in teams, work on one specific part of a house and may not touch other parts of the house, do not design but mainly implement. You might even liken SWEs to tradesmen generally in that there can be a high degree of specialization: plumbers, electricians, finish carpenters, tilers etc being the devOps, secOps, backend, frontend etc.

Woodworking != carpentry

Again, a big part of the draw to woodworking for SWE is the same as the draw for a software side/toy project: it's more fun and fulfilling to build something in it's entirety, from scratch, and by yourself (especially if you do the opposite in your day job).

Also, be wary of quitting your job to become a woodworker. Woodworking professionally does not necessarily resemble what is posted in this article or linked to. Many woodworkers start out as carpenters and learn on the job or as a side hustle to carpentry. Many woodworkers do not design the pieces they make/install. Many parts of the piece you are making could be prefab. The amount of time you'll be able to spend manually sharpening your hand tools will be limited. Grass is always greener: physical work is rewarding, but anyone who has done carpentry and/or woodworking their whole life will have infirmities, ailments, and maybe even disabilities caused by their career. There is woodworking fantasy and their is woodworking reality.

And also, tastes have changed and most don't care to pay for quality woodwork. Odds are the wealthy homeowner is going to take your beautiful mahogany built-ins and paint them purple because that's what the interior designer asked for. And that's if your lucky. Most folks don't buy custom built furniture, they buy IKEA. By all means take up woodworking and quit you SWE job, but assume that you will very quickly dip into the fortune you amassed as a SWE. I think there should be more craft in this world, so I wouldn't discourage it outright -- but make sure you have the material means to sustain this woodworking fantasy.

It's the small things, sometimes.