Why I do programming, as a non professional programmer, is to make my life easier; to have the computer do my work for me. I program to automate manual tasks.
I've stitched disperate corporate systems that don't communicate together with autohotkey. I've used powershell to complete jobs in minutes that take other people hours. I've even used MS Access for data analysis.
As a non professional programmer I learn to use what I have access to, which you can likely see from some of the things I've used above, is not much and stuff you probably wouldn't chose.
However in my personal life where I can follow my interests I struggle with choosing which technologies to learn. I want to learn what's going to last, like SQL for example. An example might be when I went with dart and flutter for cross platform app development, despite it constantly being said that Google will abandon. There were just too many we'd frameworks to chose from, flutter seemed like a no brainer, and it's been pretty great.
This is a bit of a ramble so tl;dr, I learn was useful and hopefully long lasting.
I recall in third grade coming across a QBasic program on my families second hand 286 that could read from the mouse. I have no clue how it worked looking back. Convinced however that the ball mice at the time must use little generators rather than the optical encoder wheels they truly used, and knowing generators were also motors when used in reverse, I spent literal months trying to essentially write to the mouse so I could move the mouse around the desk and spook my friends.
This of course never worked out, and eventually I told my uncle who worked in IT what I was trying to do and he explained why it wouldn't work and we actually disassembled my Microsoft Bus mouse to see how it worked.
Despite my disappointment, I'd learned some things about computers and BASIC in the process and frankly I was hooked.
Here I am 30+ years later still looking for novel uses for things.
> To keep my mind sharp. To explore the mysteries of the world.
Why I do programming?
> I'm not special but I happen to live in my body.
Why I do programming?
> Yea sure, why not other endeavours. I do have other endeavours, they all have in common that things are quite conceptual and don't require a lot of actual resources. I like that form of minimalism.
Why I do programming?
> Funnily enough, I don't have a good answer to this one. It just happens to be one of those fields of "applied math" that feels practical and not too high brow.
This article resonated with me, another fellow pawn script, but I used to do mods in the old half life and counter-strike and some other hl mods.
Similarily I started from ms-dos, pascal from school and slowly went to the html part.
I had the impression that my programming desire just faded in time with so many jobs, but It might be what you described as burnout... who knows, but I learned something from this.
My story is similar. I’ve been programming nearly every day for over 35 years and don’t see myself stopping any time soon.
Occasionally someone (usually at work) will ask “why do you know that?” or “how did you learn how to do that?” (where “that” is typically something outside of my direct job responsibilities).
I’ve been programming for so long and have dabbled or seriously worked with so many parts of the computing landscape - mostly out of simple curiosity and love of craft - that I admit to being somewhat annoyed at questions like this. I have trouble connecting with the premise.
But I don’t want to offend, and it’s not my place to judge when it feels like my interlocutor works in my field simply because the money is there. So I came up with a succinct way to answer those questions.
Programming is in a niche in comparison to other hobbies / professions in that it is a creative process where you can repeat the experiment endlessly and without physical costs or destruction (assuming your code is not operating a robot or something in the physical world). Re-writing pieces of your code and re-running never fails to bring joy to me. Painting, carpentry, racing, etc; do not have an analogue. Producing digital art (music, for example), writing and tinkering with mathematics come close.
Researchers in chemistry and biology may enjoy a similar joy, but I assume it is much more difficult to re-run your experiment with slightly different ingredients. One aspect where these fields are leaps ahead of code is "code producing code": chain reactions are common in the real world and in fact, probably key to the whole thing.
As someone who also loves the act of programming, I find the idea of transitioning to using AI agents difficult. Not because they are better or worse at the job, but because it shifts me into a role of writing specs and shepherding robot monkeys with typewriters. I hope I'm wrong.
i remember when i was like 8, i used to take apart stuff like RC cars to see what's in them and if i can do anything else with them, and after i got into programming i felt like this is the best thing for me cause programming allowed me to do whatever i wanted, more than what can normally be done with computers.
As a high school student in the early 70's I was allowed batch access to the Naval Postgraduate School 360/67 as part of an Explorer scouting program. On the first day, I was shown how to use the 029 keypunch (in itself an amazing machine), then the hot card reader, how to wait for your 1403 printouts, and where I could get some IBM self-guided tutorials to learn FORTRAN. I could come and go as I pleased. It was like being transported to another dimension, and I was hooked on programming for life. I still program almost every day.
For me, the reason I do programming, is the wonderful rollercoaster of feeling like a god in one moment, to feeling like a moron in the next. I think I kind of got addicted to that :D
I get paid to implement one very badly specified but important programming language in another programming language that is painful to use and rife with pitfalls even when used defensively.
But each year, there's Advent of Code, and I enjoy using pure functional programming to solve interesting problems in a minimal amount of code. It's fun and challenging, and reminds me of the magic that computers seemed to hold fifty years ago.
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[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 45.1 ms ] threadI've stitched disperate corporate systems that don't communicate together with autohotkey. I've used powershell to complete jobs in minutes that take other people hours. I've even used MS Access for data analysis.
As a non professional programmer I learn to use what I have access to, which you can likely see from some of the things I've used above, is not much and stuff you probably wouldn't chose.
However in my personal life where I can follow my interests I struggle with choosing which technologies to learn. I want to learn what's going to last, like SQL for example. An example might be when I went with dart and flutter for cross platform app development, despite it constantly being said that Google will abandon. There were just too many we'd frameworks to chose from, flutter seemed like a no brainer, and it's been pretty great.
This is a bit of a ramble so tl;dr, I learn was useful and hopefully long lasting.
This of course never worked out, and eventually I told my uncle who worked in IT what I was trying to do and he explained why it wouldn't work and we actually disassembled my Microsoft Bus mouse to see how it worked.
Despite my disappointment, I'd learned some things about computers and BASIC in the process and frankly I was hooked.
Here I am 30+ years later still looking for novel uses for things.
Why I do programming?
Why I do programming?
Why I do programming?
These are four differemt questions. With four orthogonal answers.
You cannot truly know your deepest self until you can answer all four questions with insights that resonate and mirror your true self.
Good luck on your unique journey.
(Love, absolutely love, the essay/story.)
> To keep my mind sharp. To explore the mysteries of the world.
Why I do programming?
> I'm not special but I happen to live in my body.
Why I do programming?
> Yea sure, why not other endeavours. I do have other endeavours, they all have in common that things are quite conceptual and don't require a lot of actual resources. I like that form of minimalism.
Why I do programming?
> Funnily enough, I don't have a good answer to this one. It just happens to be one of those fields of "applied math" that feels practical and not too high brow.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EGqwXt90ZqA
Amazing talk about programming.
Best of luck!
Started at the same age, also learned programming mostly through SecondLife Lua and other game scripting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44658995
I often wonder how much moddable/scriptable games have contributed to the developer pool.
You missed so much school, we’re just going to insist you miss the rest.
The TFA claims "Sometimes the hardest part is maintaining focus and not chasing every shiny new thing", and I agree.
I think you have to go beyond programming, since programming is just a tool for a higher order concept. For example design a solution to a problem.
But I haven't find the way, yet.
Occasionally someone (usually at work) will ask “why do you know that?” or “how did you learn how to do that?” (where “that” is typically something outside of my direct job responsibilities).
I’ve been programming for so long and have dabbled or seriously worked with so many parts of the computing landscape - mostly out of simple curiosity and love of craft - that I admit to being somewhat annoyed at questions like this. I have trouble connecting with the premise.
But I don’t want to offend, and it’s not my place to judge when it feels like my interlocutor works in my field simply because the money is there. So I came up with a succinct way to answer those questions.
“I like computers.”
Researchers in chemistry and biology may enjoy a similar joy, but I assume it is much more difficult to re-run your experiment with slightly different ingredients. One aspect where these fields are leaps ahead of code is "code producing code": chain reactions are common in the real world and in fact, probably key to the whole thing.
The idea that you can build anything.
Because you failed at grammar? ;-) Engineers and programmers prefer passive voice, it’s endemic.
“Why I program”
Would be the active form.
But each year, there's Advent of Code, and I enjoy using pure functional programming to solve interesting problems in a minimal amount of code. It's fun and challenging, and reminds me of the magic that computers seemed to hold fifty years ago.