I have been inside the programming world since I was on the seventh grade (Back on 1984). Back then I was taking a programming course of 'BASIC' and working on Apple Computers that really wasn't much more than a Dumb Terminal. We don't even used Diskettes, there was a special connecting cable that let you use any standard audio recorder to save your programs... But it was fun!

Then I buy an old Atari game names "Basic" wich was a very limitating PC emulation game... but I love it! It was fun!

Later I had the Tandy TRS-80 with an amazing 16k Ram Memory.. wao... that was really fun!!! Later the comodore 64 (with games!)... and so on and so on and so on...

I don't remember exactly when It evolved from being just a hobby, to be my primary and only income... but I'm sure, I don't get into this for the money... I get into this, because it was fun.

Now I see so many fresh-from-college programers and IT Personnel in general, that get into this just for the money. Those people really don't like this stuff, and very often, they are not good at this. I believe that being a programmer it's like being an artist. To create a state of the art function, bullet-proof, dumb-proof, time-optimized, you really have to be inspired. You have to like this sh... otherwise, you could be hours and hours looking at the monitor, like a novel writer without a story to write about.

Of course, there are some cases where, very intelligent people, could do almost anything with just a little determination, even if they don't like the stuff. But from what I have seen so far, If you don't really have FUN when you are coding, you won't be very succesfull.

What U guys think?

Ruben