I started programming right on the cusp of the home computer revolution. The idea of having a computer in your house was this weird leap from the pages of science fiction into reality, and I was maybe 12 years old. I was very much part of the "If I want it to do something I have to learn how to make it do that" generation.
It wasn't until I got to college and got to study Joseph Weizenbaum's essay on "the compulsive programmer":
"The computer programmer, however, is a creator of universes for which he alone is the lawgiver. So, of course, is the designer of any game. But universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs."
And I thought, "Wow, yes, that's it exactly." Something about programming switches your brain into a mode that says, "I am in complete control of the universe under my fingertips, I know exactly how to make it do what I need it to do." As I grew in my career (it's been 40 years) my description of "what I love and why I love it" went from "I love to code, coding makes me happy" (when other people were assigning me the problems) to "I want to add value to the world by providing solutions to problems, and the way I can do that is when I can convert the problem into something that can be constrained and described, and thus potentially solved, within a computer."
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I started programming right on the cusp of the home computer revolution. The idea of having a computer in your house was this weird leap from the pages of science fiction into reality, and I was maybe 12 years old. I was very much part of the "If I want it to do something I have to learn how to make it do that" generation.
It wasn't until I got to college and got to study Joseph Weizenbaum's essay on "the compulsive programmer":
"The computer programmer, however, is a creator of universes for which he alone is the lawgiver. So, of course, is the designer of any game. But universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs."
And I thought, "Wow, yes, that's it exactly." Something about programming switches your brain into a mode that says, "I am in complete control of the universe under my fingertips, I know exactly how to make it do what I need it to do." As I grew in my career (it's been 40 years) my description of "what I love and why I love it" went from "I love to code, coding makes me happy" (when other people were assigning me the problems) to "I want to add value to the world by providing solutions to problems, and the way I can do that is when I can convert the problem into something that can be constrained and described, and thus potentially solved, within a computer."