"Why Programming Is Fun"

jonasbn on 2007-01-23T15:07:48

In the last issue of Dr. Dobbs, there was an article entitled 'Why Programming is Fun', the article is a spin of from a blog entry by the author at: http://blogs.codegear.com/davidi/archive/2006/08/19/26828.aspx>
I can agree with most of the things he mention, then again some of the aspects are of no interest to me - and the same point originally authored by Fred Brooks seem to be more down my alley.

But as something, which is probably not particularly Perl, I think I would like to write up my own list, based on my work as a Perl programmer, some of these are also on the lists mentioned:

• The joy of building things
• The joy of building things fast
• The happiness of seing you test suite pass 100%
• The happiness of seing your work mature over time
• The joy of freely refactoring and having your test suite point to you where you broke something
• The joy of receiving a bug report or patch, that tells you somebody actually use your work (I do not get that often)
• The feeling standing on the shoulders of giants when you discover a cool CPAN module, which does just what you need

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Oh I forgot

jonasbn on 2007-01-25T20:05:37

• Writing something Perl-ish, which does not look like any other language, it is not often I do this, but once in a while I do something Perl and I sense joy and happiness
  

talking to the electrons

mr_bean on 2007-01-26T03:38:43

I like it because, when I talk to them, the electrons talk back. In real life, people don't talk back. I am a teacher.

Programming is therapy for me, reassuring me that I am not completely incompetent.

What I wouldn't like about being a programmer for a living is interacting with users. Going out to install an application on a user's machine, for example. What a terrible level of interaction with other people. What terrible interpersonal relationships.

I think I'll stick to teaching.

Re:talking to the electrons

jonasbn on 2007-01-28T17:17:02

Well users are not as bad as the rumours say.

The interesting thing about working with users is that it can sometimes get you to interact with the electrons in ways you would never have thought of yourself.

Much like one of the other side effects of working like working with fellow programmers, you can make one plus one give three.

The therapeutic feeling you describe is familiar to me and there is nothing like being alone with the electrons, but believe me that expanding this sphere can be very therapeutic as well, sometimes it requires extra effort, but the payback can then twice as rewarding.