Originally published on ali-ilman.com/blog.
I recently read an Instagram post by a fellow programmer. There's a question in the post, which is why do you code / program. Whenever I read such question, the first thing that pops into my mind would be, the satisfaction in seeing the code you wrote brings a product to life.
I remember starting out on Khan Academy back in May 2014. Oh Lord, it feels like that was yesterday. 😱 I can't recall exactly what I learned on Khan Academy, but I believe it was Drawing & Animation in JavaScript. I'm not sure why I started with Drawing & Animation. To be quite honest about it, I hated it! 😂
I didn't finish the course either, and I never liked drawing anyway when I went to school. Plus the course felt rather advanced for a beginner, or it could be me being oblivious to there being more beginner-friendly courses. 🤷♂️ After Khan Academy, I learned on Codecademy, freeCodeCamp, SoloLearn. It was mostly JavaScript tutorials. I never really got going after each of the fundamental JavaScript courses on each platform. I was trapped in-between the after tutorial and the creating projects phases. Having known myself more, I find that Udemy courses give me those Oh I see! moments. If only I discovered the platform much earlier!
But two things stuck with me, and they are the excitement in creating something and knowing that you can create almost, if not, anything, with code. One can solve a problem for society, improvise on something for fellow developers and many more!
Fast forward to 2019, I've been working for a year & a half. Including the reasons above, why do I write code?
- Excitement in creating something.
- Knowing that you can create almost, if not, anything, with code, and contribute to society in such way.
- The satisfaction in seeing the code you wrote brings a product to life.
- Writing code is a piece of art. Clean, readable code is utter beauty, poetry-esque!
- Solving code problems are satisfying.
- The flexibility in being able to work from basically anywhere.
- The demand for programmers.
How about you? Why do you write code? 🤓
Top comments (6)
Because typing code and seeing it execute is fun to me. The clickeddy-clackeddy-go is intrinsically satisfying. Doesn’t have anything to do with the product or the language. Although dynamic or functional or low-level languages are more fun to code in.
The language you write in definitely affects your enjoyment with code. 👍 I've used PHP previously, and I thought how messy and disorganised the language is, lack of experience may be the reason. But still! I've found joy writing in Ruby unlike in PHP.
My reasons in no particular order:
Number 3 is something I keep in mind. Too much abstraction can be unnecessary or even confusing. 🤪
Code is powerful. Innovations that contribute to someone else's life are wonderful to see. 🙌
Because I'm good at it and I like to do that (most of the time).
Understandable, really. 🤓 Who wouldn't want to do something they like and are good at, right? 😉