When people ask what I do for a living, I generally say I’m a computer programmer. I say this because it’s simple and understandable, but it’s only partly true. I do a lot more paperwork than programming.
I write test plans. Follow test plans. Write documentation. Organize documentation. Read documentation that tells me what documentation to write. Send e-mails. Answer questions. Manage projects. Estimate costs. Estimate schedules. Define requirements. Design software. Explain to other software developers what we need. Consult with vendors. Receive training. Et cetera.
I’d say that computer programming – the actual writing of code – accounts for less than 20% of my time.
To be fair, these other tasks aren’t just overhead. They are part of my job description. Lots of people in IT do valuable work and never write programs at all. That’s fine.
But when I get to do some real programming – as I have this week – it makes me happy.
It sounds odd to say programming is a simple pleasure. After all, programs are often staggeringly complex, spanning dozens of modules, multiple layers, thousands of lines of code. It’s not at all unusual for a single web application to involve five or more different languages working together (HTML, XML, javascript, SQL, and VB.NET/C# spring to mind). Just learning how to use the development tools is itself a neverending task.
Yet despite all that complexity, programming is a simple pleasure.
It’s simple because computers do exactly what you tell them, no more, no less. And it’s a pleasure because there is joy in precision, in defining a thing and seeing it immediately done.
People are emotional, they’re vague, they have conflicting priorities, they lie, they frequently don’t know what they themselves are doing. Let’s face it: people are trouble.
But if a computer does something wrong, it’s because you (or someone) gave it the wrong instructions.
Programming is also tremendously creative and liberating, because once you know how to write code – in any language – you can do whatever you want. You could write a chatbot, a joke generator, a recipe database, an interactive movie, a speech recognition system, a tic-tac-toe partner – or something cooler than all of those put together.
The mind’s the limit.
I’m reminded of a quote from Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
The entire ocean. The entire world. Wherever we want to go, we’ll go. That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails. That’s what a ship needs. But what a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is…is freedom.
What programming really is, is freedom.
What about you? Do you ever find simple pleasure in complicated things?
Brian D. Buckley 
Not sure if this counts as complicated, especially when comparing to computer programming, but I find learning, creating, noticing and taking apart good storylines or story elements very pleasurable.
It’s not just writing a story as it comes to me, but it’s also seeing it in other works and noticing the trick they use to make something compelling. Like when they use foreshadowing or a twist or something.
Like for example, the season finale of Dexter. They did something during the episode that I realized they did in order to make the ending that much more dramatic. They also fixed problems they would have had if they had done the ending without doing that first part first.
Not sure if I’m making sense, but that sort of thing. Noticing that or using it myself in my own story, is a whole lot of fun.
Yeah, that does make sense, and I think I do that less than you. I tend to get caught up in the story and analyze less. That’s a very useful habit you’ve got going.
Thanks.
Well it depends. At first, I didn’t notice at all. It was more like after I watched something I LOVED, I’d play it over and over again in my head, especially particulars of that part that made me love it so, and I just started noticing things. I think as time went on and as I learned more about writing, the elements pop out to me more than before. Or perhaps it was just really obvious in Dexter and in other shows.
But the really REALLY good stuff, I get sucked into it and forget that there is actually someone creating all this, but it actually feels real and I get caught up and don’t notice anything. When I encounter something like this, I’m learning to go back and read it/watch it again but actually looking for the workings behind the scenes.
I like the way you describe the pleasure of programming. Once upon a time, I thought computer programming was amazing — but that was back when I was writing short programs in BASIC and thinking I was cool for being able to make the screen flash different colours, or a badly-rendered balloon float across the screen.
(I was 9, okay?)
Meanwhile, that’s one of my favourite quotes of all time. I use it to describe the reason I love long-distance driving. As I get in the car, knowing I’ve got at least 600km to go, I feel the sense of freedom.
Bring me that horizon.
Haha…that brings back fond memories of my early Visual Basic programs. I know exactly what you mean. The programs may be simple, but dammit, I’m in control!
“Programming is also tremendously creative and liberating…”
YUP. I used to program — originally I was going to double major in creative writing and computer science — and even though they seem completely different on the surface, I found a similar pleasure in each. Glad to know I’m not the only one. 🙂
(Spoiler: I ended up dropping the CS double because I just didn’t love it *enough*. I switched to a design minor, though, and I adored that.)
People are always surprised, aren’t they, when they find out you walk in both worlds? Writing and programming seem like such opposite things, but you’re right, there’s similarity there. And each enriches the other.
You people are lucky! To be able to have a stable job that you love while also working towards the less than stable writing dream.
Heh, well…I certainly agree that I’m lucky, but “love” would be a pretty strong word for how I feel about my job.
Yes, they are very similar, actually. I’m an amateur self-taught PHP programmer (of course, I’m an amateur, self-taught novelist, too).
I write little things like scripts to pull stories out of a WordPress database, sort them in order, and put them in a printable HTML file. I’ve done some other things, too, conditional stories where links to the next part of the story change depending on what you’ve read already.
I have a friend who is a professional PHP programmer, and the nicest thing he ever said about my code was, “Well, it works.”
But it does work, and I wrote it, and it does what I wanted it to. A real pleasure.
Exactly. 🙂
Lol, this is interesting to me because whenever I write I feel like I’m programming a video game. Or at least, that’s what I compare it to. Every singe character is a sprite, the worldbuilding is the background, the enemies are the antagonists, and speech is the dialogue. All the codes have to be consistent and work together for the story to make sense, and then the better the graphics the more people will pay attention to it. Also, I actually program a bit myself, although I’m struggling to learn the more complicated software. I’ll get it eventually, though.
I’ve never thought of it like that, but it’s a cool analogy. And both professions also face challenges with finding a publisher, or getting publicity for indie efforts…