I did woodworking long before programming of any kind. There are some subtle but critical differences...
Mess up bad in programming, you may loose your job.
Mess up bad on the {table,band,radial arm}saw or jointer,planer,lathe and you may loose a {finger,limb,LIFE}
Cleaning up in woodworking is pretty much required, where as in software, some one typically has to yell at you to do it. If you do not clean the table saw, or dust collector, it will stop functioning. This happens a lot sooner in woodworking than the "technical debt" of software.
Personally, I prefer woodworking to software, but I think a lot of people romanticize woodworking or trade types of hobbies after doing software for a while. The truth is that it will take you a long time to be able to bang out one of those picture perfect awesome furniture items... and that piano level, three feet deep finish you see other people do... Yeah, tell me how easy that was to get. It is just like software in that respect. Good clean code takes time. Good looking woodworking takes a lot of experience.
With woodworking, you can say you are going for that country charm rustic look. Then each defect is "character". End the end you can still have a functional useful piece.
If you really want some stress in the shop, teaching is hard to beat. I'm not a naturally graceful or coordinated person, but I am at least pretty aware of where my body is relative to the sharp things. It's my experience that not everyone has that.
I had a chance to teach wood shop at a high school while the usual teacher was on sabbatical. I declined because I decided I couldn’t deal with the possibility of some kid losing a finger on the table saw while in my class.
Mess up bad in programming, you may loose your job.
Mess up bad on the {table,band,radial arm}saw or jointer,planer,lathe and you may loose a {finger,limb,LIFE}
Cleaning up in woodworking is pretty much required, where as in software, some one typically has to yell at you to do it. If you do not clean the table saw, or dust collector, it will stop functioning. This happens a lot sooner in woodworking than the "technical debt" of software.
Personally, I prefer woodworking to software, but I think a lot of people romanticize woodworking or trade types of hobbies after doing software for a while. The truth is that it will take you a long time to be able to bang out one of those picture perfect awesome furniture items... and that piano level, three feet deep finish you see other people do... Yeah, tell me how easy that was to get. It is just like software in that respect. Good clean code takes time. Good looking woodworking takes a lot of experience.