Programming for Fun or Money?

[Penar]

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

[kovan]

i could sit here and bash you til you cry
but i wont
dont compare programming to some art
i am a college student and you question my intelligence (notice i cant spell)


If you don't really have FUN when you are coding, you won't be very succesfull.


most of the time i hate programming code,
but i am not a failure
if you really care
after my first year of college
i have my own software company
work for a electric company to design a state of the art (damn it am comparing programming to art )
and i consult on the side

when you started programming did were you a genious?
didn't think so
there for
"one must walk before he starts running"

[Michael]

Let us assume that everyones day is split into 3 roughly equal thirds (excluding weekends and the idle rich!!!).

1 Sleeping
2 Working/studying
3 Leisure

This means that at least 50% of our conscious time is spent doing what we have to do to earn our living, or in the case of students, preparing for a lifetime of earning a living.

Where is all this philosophy leading? Simple - If you don't enjoy doing what you spend at least half of your conscious life doing then you are in the wrong game. It doesn't matter whether you are a programmer, road sweeper, brain surgeon or what.

Kovan: Sounds like your coronary is just around the corner. Relax and smile!!!

[kovan]

do look at the title of my original message
that smile is wroth a thousand hours of coding aint it? :)

[kb244]

I've been coding for fun since the beginning of highschool, never took a college courseon the topic, in fact the only language I took a class on was C++ , and that was on my senior year, just so I could get credit for the AP Course, it's just nice that something I enjoy can also make money, but the point of any job is to get a job you can survive off of, but enjoy it.

I started programming for fun, I still am, but now I have a job :D I make about $200 a month.... :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
The best part about this job is, it is my first job, and I dont even have to leave the house, and I never thought my First job would be programming.....

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[kb244]

Hehe wait til you start making least 30,000 off it, it's considered low for the IT field, but you could live off of it.

[Penar]

Firt let me quote myself:

"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. "

I didn't expect anyone to be offended. But my point of view is still the same. This is art. Of course, that's my point of view. Everyone is free to believe whatever u want.

And now, let's discuss:

Kovan

You said "after my first year of college i have my own software company"

I respond... I also have my company. That doesn't means anything to me. Anyone with $100 bucks could go to the "State Department Office" and regiter a company. That does not mens he/she is a succesfull subject.

You also quote me saying:

"If you don't really have FUN when you are coding, you won't be very succesfull."

But if you look closely, that was not the complete sentence... what i wrote was:

"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."

Let me repeat it: "from what I have seen so far"

You also said :

"when you started programming did were you a genious?
didn't think so"

I respond. Like I said, I started very very long ago, when I was a kid. I choose to take a BAsic Programming course that was available. I don't expect you to believe I was a genious. I was just saying that I started in this very long ago, thats all. If I give another impresion, i'm sorry. But, FYI as a matter of fact, yes I was a genious. I had the beter grades of the whole state (on that PC Programming course). And I got the a little paper that says so, and a little medal hanging on my living room. If you really want to came down here and bash me till I cry, I guess I could hit you with the medal until you brain fell out of your head. That way, I could finally find something usefull to do with the old medal.

I was just making a point. I know many people like you kovan. When they encounter a problem with an old DOS application tehy just freak out. If a memory module have to be replaced on a 250k HP server, they freak out. They say "that's not my job, call the technician". If they have to sweat a little replacing a CAT5 cabling on the acoustic roof, they freak out.

On The other side, people like me, that really like this stuff, are very different. When we had the oportunity to work with an optical fiber installation, do u think we let that go away? Hell no men! We get our hands on it, right away. As we do with anything on the computer world, we do cabling, we work with routers, we test every new devices that came to our hands. We read and comment every tech news of the day. We get to our homes, and if we are borred, we turn on our pc's, connect to our offices and write some code. We spent holydays, weekends and even some birthdays... just coding, reading, learning new technologies. There is no way, u can beat somebody who really love this stuff (again, that's only my opinion).

And Im not talking just for IT, but for every field. You must do what you like to do. that's a rule... u will live longer and u will have less cardiac problems.

And finaly, before anybody complains about my gramar mistakes, I offer my most sincere apologies... english is not my primary language and even if it would, I really dont care much about grammar. :)

Ruben

[Penar]

I forgot to ask, how do u rate the success of a programer? Becouse maybe that's were we differ. I don't believe that a Programer who make some ado/dao stuff and makes 80k is a success, if that is the best he can do. I don't rate programmers by how much money they make.

I know a 20 year old kid, freshman on Electrical Eng. The boy had no money to buy a new printer, so he get a 3rd hand old laser. The manufacturer of that laser went to bankrupcy a year ago, and he had no drivers. So he get a free Assembler from the net and code the driver himself. He don't get any money for that, but as I see it, that's a hell of a programmer!

Ruben

[Ben.Stappleton]

Well said Penar!

[kovan]

hehehe
yes well put penar about that 20 year old
well i have to admit, sometimes i like coding
n e ways
i think if i say anything else this thread will be another ruined thread *points to some people*

penar take it easy, have a coke (pepsi if you like too)

[Ianpbaker]

I'm only 21 and is already well over the average national salary in the uk, but before you start hammering me about the money, I couldn't give a monkey's toss about it. I'm not the most skill full or intelligent at most thing's. But in programming, I have found, something I really enjoy and are quite good at and if I was earning less, I would still be doing it as the job satisfaction I get out of it is greater than anything else I would do.
It actually scares me, the amount of money people are paying for me and fellow people and becuase of that, I try to give 100% all the time. But yes I have met people who are just in it for the money(sounds like a song title to me) and only have very basic skill's and that annoy's me greatly

Ian

[Ianpbaker]

ps. that last part was not a reference to one of our fellow members :D

[kovan]

i had written your name in that hit list too
now how da hell am i gonna erase it since its in invisible paper? :)

seriously thou
i get one of my greatest joys from solving a problem in piece of my code
am not talking about misspelling a variable and finding out what a stupid mistake i did

am talking about sitting down and trying to figure out a strategy on how to go about solving a problem like how will this work, if i do that, well how will the other part work. ect

happy programming

[Ianpbaker]

Kovan:
what hit list?

all:
when I said I get the most job satisfaction then any thing else I would do, that doesn't include becomming a full time female swedish mud wrestling referee. :D :D :D

[CyberSurfer]

Just for all you money grabbing programmers out there:

1. I am writing a program which is currently 58 pages long for the community website FOR FREE!

2. I am volunteering to help with Kovans project FOR FREE!

3. My idea of fun is Assembling Computers and writing Code.

4. Surely getting paid to do something you enjoy should be a secondary issue.

[kovan]

IAN
oh just a ambition i have
if i take over the world, i am making up my hit list (people to kill)
it originally started with people ruining my threads
like i post "labtop wanted"
and people reply with NOTHING to do with labtops :)
so i decided to make a hitlist

dont worry your off it
i found my invisible eraser


CYBERSURFER
did you get my email by the way?
i think i got a reply from you this morning
i dind't have time to read it, cus ihad to run throu the door

i have made a directory on my puter (which is down for some strange reason) for the group,

i will email you more info later when i get home
i think my computer is down cus i installed .NET SDK..

[Penar]

Kovan:

Ok, sorry if i has rude before or if I don't explained myself very well from the start. If you ever visit my little island, bring your coke (or pepsi) and I will add some Bacardy (PuertoRican RUM) and we could make a toast (is toast the correct translation for Brindis?) in behalf of all programers, either they are in persuit of money or profesional happiness.

ALL:

For me, making a program means creating something that doesn't existed before, ever. When Im designing a GUI, I turn of the computer and work on a paper with a few colorfull crayons. And after I get the job done, I compile... watching the progress bar as the exe file is being created is quite a sensation. And then, the first time you run the final version, and you see it working... telneting a Unix box, grabbing some data, looging to a SQL grabbing some more data, working with all that, and making your reports... then logging everything on another Database, emailing the results, even sending me a page: "Purge Operation Successfull!". Then you sit back on your chair, open the source and browse pages and pages of code and say to yourself "I'm the man!". It fells just wonderfull.

I'm not trying to blame anybody for making money out of this "hobby"... I'm making like 2.5 times more money than the average worker here in PR. And I'm not even working on a "Programmer" position, I'm just the "Backup Guy". But now that I recently become a Father (I have a cute 4 months old baby), I have to ask myself how I gonna explain to my kid all this Job/Fun/Money stuff. Of course, I will like him to be a great money maker, like every dad. But more important than that, I want him to be happy. Like my father told me when I was a kid "Do whatever u like to do, and try to be the best at it!".

I will never encourage him to choose a carrer he don't like, just for the money that he could make. What's the point of making lots of dollars, if you are not happy with your life? Have you ever been on a goverment agency where the guy that work your case is so angry with evrything? Guys that really wanted to be F-14 Fighter Pilots, living on a Navy Aircraft Carrier, always ready for the action... but they make a wrong decision and end up stocked in a chair behing a goverment agency desk. And you sit in front of them and their faces tells "My life stinks! Go away! Im about to go nuts and start killing everyone with a machine-gun!". Thats where I tell myself hey, thanks god I'm working in something I like to do.

Ruben
--------
Driver carries no cash--he's married!

[V(ery) Basic]

The very basic lives on.

But with greater powers and a couple of extra inches.

Oh. Should I contribute to this thread? In literary or liquid form? Okay. Here's me doing my bit for the community...

In the words of one of those people in the audience of Jerry Springer 'He, your brother, entered a homosexual relationship with your husband?' And I think the deeper message this is trying to say is that even if what you are doing is gay, it's alright if you are having fun. But if you are doing it just for the sake of being gay, then ...

OH FORGET IT.

You'd never understand, anyway.

I am years before my time. When they look back on me hundreds of years from now, then they will realise who I really was. A loser. But till then, farewell cruel world...

Slit

gurgle-gurgle

cough-cough

splutter-splutter.

Damn. They don't make knives sharp any more do they?

(Takes out revolver)

Bang.

From your mangled syntax, V, I would assume you missed.

Penar, my experience has been that people who don't enjoy
design or coding aren't any good at it. There MIGHT
exceptions but I doubt it. It takes too much time and
energy to learn to do it well.

[barrk]

Programming is fun...so is earning money! It's great when you enjoy what you do!

[smh]

To tell you the truth, I went to the college that I went to not having any idea what I wanted to do with my life. 18 and no future. How I choose to study programming was the money behind it. I looked at the wall with pamphlets about each program offered, and I figured I would make the most money programming if I set my mind to do it.

Now, after completing school, (as one of the top of my class), my reasons for programming have changed a full 360. I do still enjoy the money, because it pays for my house, car, and gives my son and fiance everything they need and a little more, but I now really enjoy programming because it's a challenge. I love to think that I am one of the few people in this world that can think in the way we programmers need to think in order to program. It's also great to know that you can learn something new each day while creating a program and then watch the customer's amazement when they actually get to see and use your final product.

[parksie]

All the money I've ever earned in my life (not long) came from things I taught myself - like programming and electronics. The stuff I did in school hasn't got me anything :(

But - I'm happy because I get paid to do what I love doing.

PS: Anybody in Britain ever seen one of Alan Solomon's lectures at the revision sessions in London? If you have you'll see what I mean.

[HarryW]

Parksie - Who is he (have a feeling I've heard the name somewhere before), what are they about, and when are they on?

[parksie]

Alan Solomon - founder of Dr Solomon's Antivirus. The sessions are for a-level stuff.

[Shafee]

I too enjoy programming, and see it as an art. But when I start doing free stuff with lines and lines of code, people don't appreciate my work. I get destructive criticism for my work, and I get really annoyed by that. Anyone of you have the same experience?

[Edited by shafee on 01-04-2001 at 07:04 PM]

[Benjamin]

yes, one time somebody stole my code and claimed it as there own...

the code took me a while, because when i wrote it I was just learning what I coded......