Coding Hobbyists - Why do you code?

[cafeenman]

I mean it's fun and educational but mostly I code for a few reasons.

First, I feel like I have unique requirements.

I'm a model-builder and the first thing I tried to do in QBasic was plot airfoils.

I didn't know what an array was and an airfoil can have over 100 x,y cooridinate on the top and the bottom of the airfoil.

So in my first attempt I actually created 200 variables to hold that data.

Also, quality of life stuff that I want in an app. Behaviors that I want, for example.

Almost every "real" application I use has stuff that really annoys me. For example, Ribbons in MS Office just suck. I format as I go and ribbons mean clicking all over the place just to format a table and table entries.

Toolbars are just better. It's all in one place.

My latest app runs my business. I'm too lame to learn real accounting software which is way too much for my needs with a steep learning curve and most of the stuff I will never use.

It's been a journey and I think I've peaked way lower than I want to be but I don't have the time or motivation I used to have.

And all the utility apps I wrote I've found far better freeware versions of that do more better than anything I ever wrote such as file renamers and that sort of thing.

I lost my plot here.

[cafeenman]

Actually, the real reason I code is that I've been able to touch-type really fast since my year-long typing class as a freshman in high school. but any time I needed to type a number or symbol I had to look at the keyboard.

Coding has made it 14% more likely that I can touch-type the correct number without looking down at the keyboard.

I'm probably giving myself too much credit there. It's probably closer to 12%. Also I just typed % without looking. So maybe 13%.

[TysonLPrice]

I do it for a living and that is it. When I retire I don't plan on ever writing another line of code. Thirty-five years is enough

[2kaud]

Thirty-five years - you're just getting into the swing of things! I've been coding for fifty years.

[cafeenman]

I do it for a living and that is it. When I retire I don't plan on ever writing another line of code. Thirty-five years is enough

I'm pretty sure that 35 years coding professionally is the very definition of "hobbyist".

[sapator]

My job and the occasional hacking in the past. Not really something I enjoy or hate, it's just meh.

[Peter Porter]

It's a hobby.

I'm currently coding an app to help with writing short stories or novels.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I started because I wanted something to occupy my mind while I was fighting off the gators in the deepest, wildest, parts of the Everglades. At first, the gators were quite interesting, but they become just a part of the scenery. Occasionally, they'd eat one of our traps, but usually there was no real interaction...except when I opened their nests to count eggs, in which case the fight was on.

I was mostly studying the fish, and thought that the setup and take down could be done without really engaging my mind, so I got into programming largely to occupy my mind. I had done some in high school, so it wasn't new, I just hadn't done any in several years. It didn't really work out. There was always something going on out there in the swamps.

[sapator]

You hit the nail there. Something more boring than programming is fishing. It's the most boring thing I can think off....Except maybe the thing with the ice trimming...What's it called, let me check..A! Curling. That might be a good sport for suicidal maniacs to watch.

[Shaggy Hiker]

This wasn't that kind of fishing. On the other hand, fishing in the Everglades is not very boring. We were practicing full contact fishing. It wasn't a day unless I was bleeding.

[dday9]

I started coding because I worked insurance in south Louisiana but we couldn't write homeowners through the carrier I represented so we had to broker it out. As a result we had an entire office dedicated to filing cabinets just for those brokered homeowner customers and it was extremely inefficient.

So I decided to write essentially the worst CRM you can imagine and it was still better than our old system.

After that I found that I enjoyed writing code so I started doing little projects here and there, basically doing whatever interested me which I found out very quickly was not developing games. Fast forward a couple of years and I sold my insurance agency and became a full time developer (about 5 years ago).

I will admit that while I do some coding for fun, it is not nearly as much as it was before I became a full time dev. By the end of the day I'm mostly brain dead so the last thing I want to do is do more coding.

[sapator]

We were practicing full contact fishing.

What the heck where you doing over there! You weirdos!!

[2kaud]

I started coding in HP Time Shared Basic (TSB - basically Dartmouth Basic) when I was at school (earlyish 1970's) and found I had an aptitude for it. I wrote programs to assist with school administration whilst doing A-level Computer Science then University Computer Science degree then a life of programming.......

Personally I preferred programming computer mini-systems in the 1970's & 1980's before that new-fangled thing called Windows came along.

[cafeenman]

...

I will admit that while I do some coding for fun, it is not nearly as much as it was before I became a full time dev. By the end of the day I'm mostly brain dead so the last thing I want to do is do more coding.

That's what happens when you turn your hobby into how you make a living. Suddenly it's not so fun any more.

[NTShpikho]

to me coding is an addiction. it's the only thing that feels real and meaningful.
that feeling of solving a coding puzzle is a drug.

everything else feels empty and meaningless : travels, eating out, arguments,
news, it's all just fillers.

I could never connect with other coders, to them coding is a job, a tool,
a default path they take. that attitude repulses me TBH.

[cafeenman]

Have you asked your doctor if meth is right for you?

[NTShpikho]

Have you asked your doctor if meth is right for you?

I don't need a doctor, there is a new LivinGrimoire skill that acts like a psychologist,
it's called DiBurstEliza.

[sapator]

Ye Moti cannot connect with other coders but he has the team Fuku fuki that consist of other coders. Of course I do not know if imaginary coders count.
The psychologist was first introduced to Yodamarket, got astray and started attacking Funky. We had to decommission it.

[TysonLPrice]

That's what happens when you turn your hobby into how you make a living. Suddenly it's not so fun any more.

You seem a little pedantic about people coding for a living joining in on a "hobbyist" thread

[cafeenman]

My full name is Cafeen Pedantic Man.

[TysonLPrice]

My full name is Cafeen Pedantic Man.

I'm surprised the moderators allow an avatar of a man taking a dump

[sapator]

That is the "frog" position. The man is clearly ready to jump to the lake.

[cafeenman]

SumoCafeen.

(have had that avatar since I joined in 2002.

[NTShpikho]

Ye Moti cannot connect with other coders but he has the team Fuku fuki that consist of other coders. Of course I do not know if imaginary coders count.
The psychologist was first introduced to Yodamarket, got astray and started attacking Funky. We had to decommission it.

Funky, has this thing where when someone has a different non mainstream opinion, he calls them troubled and in need of help. he belittles people while pretending to do it out of kindness.

[sapator]

Maybe he does maybe he doesn't but the attack was insane, for whatever reason bursted the bubble.
Although up close he is one of the nicest dudes you could meet so I'm positive biased.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'm surprised the moderators allow an avatar of a man taking a dump

You don't recognize a sumo stance when you see one? I never even considered your interpretation of it, though now that you mention it, I suppose it is possible. That's clearly sumo, though.

[TysonLPrice]

I enhanced it for you...

[TysonLPrice]

You don't recognize a sumo stance when you see one? I never even considered your interpretation of it, though now that you mention it, I suppose it is possible. That's clearly sumo, though.

If you came across him on a hike in the woods like that would say he is "clearly a Sumo"?

[Peter Porter]

If you came across him on a hike in the woods like that would say he is "clearly a Sumo"?

Nah... Maybe a fat, hairless Sasquatch baby wearing torn Huggies.

[sapator]

People wanna see what people wanna see.Some see sumo others, well other, see dump guy.
It kinda reminds me of the picture with dolphins that is also a sex scene? Or something similar.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

I code:

a. To put steampunk stuff on desktops.
b. To increase my knowledge.
c. To keep a brain in trim.

[Peter Porter]

I code:

a. To put steampunk stuff on desktops.
b. To increase my knowledge.
c. To keep a brain in trim.

d. To currently cleanse your mind of dumping sumo wrestler.

[yereverluvinuncleber]

That too.