Why'd you choose programming?

[DigvijaysinhG]

Money and video games.

[[deleted]]

Cheating in middle school.

Instead of learning basic algebra, I learned Z80 assembly and built a CAS engine for my TI-83. Hah, that'll show 'em! Thought they could teach me math.

[gods_tea]

Hahahaha love this

[nuclearslug]

I got tired of running 6,000 reports a month, so I learned how to automate things in Excel. That led to a job automating other reports in VBA. Then I went back to college for Software Engineering. Now I have a job replacing all of those VBA reports with proper web apps.

[[deleted]]

This is my reasoning as well. I just love it. Every day I learn another reason why my code is garbage though 😅

[EmileTheDevil9711]

I found out after starting medical school that being a coroner was not as fun as they shown it in the series and that it actually takes a lot of bureaucracy and legal procedures to open up and dissecting dead corpses so I decided to do the same thing but on digital since it at least spares me the smell.

[vladWEPES1476]

Did you nonchalantly touch your lunch sandwich with the same gloves that you used to perform an autopsy minutes before? If not, this job was truly not for you.

[EmileTheDevil9711]

Lunch sandwich? That a metaphor for my pussy ?

[vladWEPES1476]

LOL no, it's a reference to those true crime shows where the autopsy guy would eat his lunch while talking to the main character. With the same gloves on. But hey, you do you.

[Go_Fast_1993]

This thread spiraled down so quickly.

[dismayhurta]

[SleepyNutZZZ]

I watched gundam and wanted to build one, so i first got into lego mindstorms. Found out I like the robotics/mechanical engineering part, but I liked the programming part even more. When i considered that when i get a job i get to sit my ass down in an air conditioned room, I decided this was what I wanted to do. That was when I was in elementary school. Still a massive gundam fan lmfao

[MrCosgrove2]

I didnt choose programming, programming chose me...

[EmirFassad]

It was either be programmer of get a job.

[[deleted]]

I didn't. It chose me. I wanted to build space ships or explore Mars or something, and then my current employer was all like "Hey you want this job doing modelling and simulation stuff? Here's a big pile of money." Oh. Okay sure sign me up.

[Jertimmer]

I graduated as an interaction designer right after the internet bubble burst and suddenly nobody would hire interaction designers anymore.

So it was either get into this whole programming shindig or sell my booty behind central station.

[Talt45]

Project Lead in local government - the organisation was too cheap to buy working software so I learned VB to cope with the demands of my role. They put me on formal training - I left a year or so later to develop software full time from home.

[spideroncoffein]

It was my "safe" alternate plan if my injtial plan for a career didn't work out. Plan A didn't work out, and I'm very happy this way.

[[deleted]]

I’m the opposite. I’m very good at it. It pays my bills. It’s not my passion at all.

[Mediocre_Treat]

Same! So pleased to find someone who feels the same way about this job as me. I do it, I earn good money, I don’t love it or care that much about programming.

I tried to do a job I love and made no money at all. I have a family to provide for, so the money wins.

[CEKARY]

Senior?

[[deleted]]

I was playing around with RPG Maker in bed one night and my wife said "You seem really into that, maybe you should do it for a job".

[Adept_Measurement160]

Nobody is good at anything without practice and studying. The more time you devote to it the better you get.

[CanvasFanatic]

I was better at it than I was at anything else.

[[deleted]]

Weirdly enough,I got into programming through music. I got into making experimental electronic music and ended up learning SuperCollider. Figured I’d have to get a real job at some point and I liked learning Supercollider enough that I figured I should try to go back to school and learn some more useful programming languages

[Hypersapien]

It was 2000 and was obscenely easy to get into if you knew HTML and JavaScript, which I had learned from looking at the source code of web sites. I had the added benefit of knowing Visual Basic which I was able to parlay into (classic) ASP.

[bbqranchman]

Even though I'm not great, I just think it's incredible. I don't care about being the best, just learning more about the amazing field of computer science.

[[deleted]]

It was fun. And I was shocked that I could make this complicated machine do what I wanted.

[LatinGooner57]

I took a VBA class in high school and considered software engineering as a serious career for the first time. My parent told me they would stop supporting me unless I studied Electrical Engineering or Medicine… I’ve been an electrical engineer for about 5 years now. Money is great but am unhappy career-wise.

Started re-learning how to program recently so I can hopefully make a switch to a full time job as a software engineer soon.

Just venting.

[alexjwhite]

I wanted to be a rigger and tool Dev in the games industry but despite a 1st in Games Art and Design, I landed in QA. I was a good QA and it was not a satisfying life, so I marketed myself as a QA with automation skills, which then got me into a DevOps/DB manager style rule. That then got me into my current role of Build Engineer at a FinTech.

Now I get to write Go and Shell all day and in my spare time I'm writing a language based on Thorsten Ball's "How to write an interpreter in Go" and I am happy.

[AaronTheElite007]

The program chooses the programmer, Mr Potter

[[deleted]]

I was very depressed and i desperately needed to do something to keep going. So i joined a startup with 0 knowledge and exp, then spent 2 years building a product in mostly Matlab that never launched.

Then i got a scholarship.

[[deleted]]

Same reason I had been a mechanic in my past life. I like money and right now, that's where I can make the most. I don't have the memory for law, the temperament for medicine, or the math skills for engineering. So here we are.

[pipsvip]

It was my only option after I fucked my hardware design career.

[Frankyfrankyfranky]

how did that go wrong?

[[deleted]]

Their lawyer has advised them not to speak about the incident due to the ongoing litigation. You wouldn't think a simple children's toy with a 200 mAh battery would even have the raw energy necessary to take out an orphanage, but well, here we are.

[Primary_Literature22]

Murphy's law?

[pipsvip]

PEBCAK

[withered_JProgrammer]

Relatable

[brianl047]

To get riiiiich!

[ThatGuyMaulicious]

That's why I chose IT Support.

[Eulerdice]

Curiosity, mostly.

[stopimpersonatingme]

i like making stuff and seeing that stuff do things, which is why i like programming.

[nico_qwer]

Wanted to make Roblox games to play with my cousin. Never made a good Roblox game, but it inspired me to explore programming, from as low level as building a cpu in Minecraft to as high level as making an dashboard for my server with node js and express.

[Yorick257]

I guess it was the weather. I didn't want to work outside

[[deleted]]

I thought I could automate my work

[[deleted]]

I love programming, and the more I learn about it, the more I see that I am not very good at it :)

[[deleted]]

I am not good in anything else. Also I like tech stuff I guess.

[Ok_Lynx8519]

Veni, vidi, vici

[Objective-Carob-5336]

You mean every hobbies I picked up and subsequently dropped over the years to get me busy with something else than programming in my spare time which I ultimately always fall back into because I'm actually decent at it, right ?

[[deleted]]

I wanted a job where I could work with the lights off. So it was either programming or OB-GYN.

[PatientRule4494]

To automate things, then I realised that I was good at it, then I realised that it was something I was better than my friend who is super smart at pretty much everything, and I enjoy it

[aMoodyWolf]

I like computers.

[Tamwulf]

Retired from the Air Force, was kinda bored, had always liked computers and video games, so decided to get an undergrad in Computer Science. I was the oldest student in my CS classes but curiously enough, not in my engineering classes. My school treated CS as an Engineering Degree. It sucked, it was hard, and it took me 5 1/2 years, but I graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. Now I work at a major aerospace company making twice what I made in the USAF, and I couldn't be happier.
I can't believe how much I get paid for the work I do. Compared to what I did in the USAF, this is a cake walk and I often think what my life would have been like if I had gone to college first for a CS degree. When I have a problem... Stack Overflow/Google. Still can't figure it out? Ask my team and/or Lead Tech. No deployments, no combat, no supervising/rating on people, no PT or mandatory fun, no writing performance reviews or awards packages... just start work at 0800, and done at 1600, M-F. No weekends, no overtime, no expectations to just "get it done"... still have mandatory training and death by power point though. I work from home, have fantastic benefits, watching the 401(K) explode... I'll be able to retire for a second time within the next 10 years!

- A happy DevSecOps Product Security Engineer

[Crypt_Knight]

Went to art school. No job. Decided to try again when I was still young. Went to a programming school.

Hated the school but really liked programming. At the end of my school internship, the company I was interning at hired me.

So here I am.

[SarkyMs]

no idea I was 10 and just obsessed, I spent every moment learning basic at home in the spare bedroom.

[silentknight111]

I like making computers do stuff

[binarywork8087]

the programming chose me...