I just read this quote from a blog posted over at bootstrappers.io and I had an epiphany.
...I Am Not A Programmer. I’m not and I don’t
want to be one either. I just want my stuff to
work and not break. Programming is not my
passion. Making stuff is my passion. Just as I
don’t like mathematics, but I like how you can
apply it to build a skyscraper.
I've been making web applications over the past 5 years, mostly stuff I wanted to make. I also worked building other people's products for salary. But at the end of the day, what I was working on and how much I believed in the product directly correlated to how much I enjoyed working on that project, not actually the coding side of things. I hated writing tests before I wrote my code. I hated discussing what OO pattern should be used. I just want to create product.
It's more and more clear how some programmers just love programming for itself, they have thousands of commits on some open source project, they submit patches to major frameworks, writes things in assembly for fun, a level which I don't think I can ever match because I'd be utterly bored.
Right now I'm happily bootstrapping my project, but I wonder what if I need to take a job again (pay bills etc), I could surely be a freelance developer but would not enjoy it as much as I love bringing to the world my own creations. But doing the latter doesn't really guarantee the bills will be paid etc.
I'm happy and sad at the same time.
It's more and more clear how some programmers just love programming for itself, they have thousands of commits on some open source project, they submit patches to major frameworks, writes things in assembly for fun, a level which I don't think I can ever match because I'd be utterly bored.
Right now I'm happily bootstrapping my project, but I wonder what if I need to take a job again (pay bills etc), I could surely be a freelance developer but would not enjoy it as much as I love bringing to the world my own creations. But doing the latter doesn't really guarantee the bills will be paid etc.
I'm happy and sad at the same time.