I've been programming for twenty years, and looking back on it all, I can't think of anytime when programming was fun.
Really I gotta ask, and this is an honest question: does anyone find programming fun? Can anyone find joy in an activity so full of frustration?
Programming seems like arguing with a petty opponent that won't give you even an inch. Every damn little thing from a semicolon to a typo results in a big bzzzt! Hundreds of times a day I get told I am wrong in the most petty, pedantic way by a dead lifeless piece of metal.
Also, I think it's not hard to argue that a lot of code out there is crap. Over the years I must have seen gigabytes of horrible corporate code.
And in the open source world it's hardly better. There was the Openssl fiasco we had a few years ago, and now that we know about Spectre and Meltdown we're not even safe on the hardware level!
Doesn't it make you wonder: what the heck have we built? Does any of this have any value? Aren't we just producing codified frustration and pain =for another programmer to slog though after us?
On the physical side, programming is a sedentary activity that over time moulds your body into the shape of a chair. Twenty years spent squirming on a rack and worried about nonsense that I can't even remember the day after.
When I walk past a roomful of programmers, I don't see too many smiles. Instead what I mostly see are expressions that are at best blank, but more often confused, frustrated or angry.
I envy musicians, fiction writers, at least their work gives people joy, and maybe gives them joy as well.
Really I gotta ask, and this is an honest question: does anyone find programming fun? Can anyone find joy in an activity so full of frustration?
Programming seems like arguing with a petty opponent that won't give you even an inch. Every damn little thing from a semicolon to a typo results in a big bzzzt! Hundreds of times a day I get told I am wrong in the most petty, pedantic way by a dead lifeless piece of metal.
Also, I think it's not hard to argue that a lot of code out there is crap. Over the years I must have seen gigabytes of horrible corporate code.
And in the open source world it's hardly better. There was the Openssl fiasco we had a few years ago, and now that we know about Spectre and Meltdown we're not even safe on the hardware level!
Doesn't it make you wonder: what the heck have we built? Does any of this have any value? Aren't we just producing codified frustration and pain =for another programmer to slog though after us?
On the physical side, programming is a sedentary activity that over time moulds your body into the shape of a chair. Twenty years spent squirming on a rack and worried about nonsense that I can't even remember the day after.
When I walk past a roomful of programmers, I don't see too many smiles. Instead what I mostly see are expressions that are at best blank, but more often confused, frustrated or angry.
I envy musicians, fiction writers, at least their work gives people joy, and maybe gives them joy as well.