51–60 of 72 posts
I like the puzzle of creating fictitious miniature, living worlds, over which I [can sometimes] exert complete control. I like words and names. I like formal elegance. It is also pleasant that I can get paid to do this in a very stable, corporate environment.
As a programmer, I still need to be creative but in a much different, much more straightforward way. I've got clearly defined problem that I need to solve, and I solve it.
I do sometimes find I get emotionally invested in whether I solve the problem or not - so if I'm stuck on a problem for a whole day and haven't solved it by the evening, I go back home dejected and depressed. Vice versa, if I've done everything I wanted to do, I'm in a great mood all evening. These sorts of ups and downs make my job exciting and refreshing.
I like solving puzzles. Often that puzzle in my world is "How do we make sense of all this data for business users" or even as simple as "How do we make this faster?". Also, its well compensated. If this was a 50k/year job I'd have found a new career by now.
It is a 50k/year job for many, many programmers.
All the turnkey solutions for my line of business are garbage. I used to be a data scientist and moved into sports science, and wow, you should see what passes for "good software" in this industry.
The first thing I did was writing everything down for the next exam (combined with a simple interface to all the info and things like calculating some simple chemistry stuff) and making sure everyone else in the class had it on their calculators (the teacher never understood where the sudden increase in grades came from...).
I had fun back then and I still feel this way. It is something I can completely immerse myself in (luckily not the only thing) and I just really like doing it.
It's evolved over the years: Age 9: It's fun Age 13: It's fun, and my parents won't buy me any games for my C64 so I have to write my own Age 24: It's fun, and I can automate all this boring repetitive business stuff to get my work done faster so that I can play more Freecell and Tetris. Age 26: It's fun, and The Internet just happened and suddenly everybody wants to pay me three times what I'm worth to do it. Woohoo…
All the turnkey solutions for my line of business are garbage. I used to be a data scientist and moved into sports science, and wow, you should see what passes for "good software" in this industry.
Sounds like you're in a position to make some good money if you've got the time and motivation :)
Which is all well and good, really. By developing better internal software packages, we move faster and more efficiently and churn out better research and products. I have no desire to sell the software that powers the engine that will overtake my competitors. Maybe in five years when we're the market leader and we can sell the software for a few million dollars per year. :)