I realised something about myself the other day. OK, I re-realised something about myself, when I had the opportunity to sit down and just code again.
I’m a programmer, and I love coding. I’ve known since early Primary School that it’s all I wanted to do. To me, coding is art, and it’s an end unto itself. I’ll write a couple hundred lines of code, and spend the next several months to several years optimising it, reducing it, making it look pretty. It’s often irrelevant whether the code I’ve just written actually works (although it’d be nice if it at least compiles), let alone whether the resulting program serves its stated business purpose. I guess this explains why I have no many unfinished projects lying around on my home PC, servers and backup discs.
Yes, the code is elegant, efficient, beautiful. I guess it’s somewhat like a painter, sculptor, or author. Whether somebody buys or uses your product makes no difference to the joy you obtain from producing it.
Naturally, this view of what I do for a living doesn’t help so much when it comes to the necessity of making money… but at least I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I’d probably spend my time on if I ever didn’t have to work for a living, hey?
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