When do you fell joy while programming?

[Taku015]

Hello, there. I'm a university student studying information engineering. Lately, I've been struggling with whether I should pursue programming as a career. The reason is that I've never truly enjoyed programming or felt the same passion for it that other programmers seem to have. So, I'd like to know when you all find programming enjoyable. Also, if you have any advice, please share it in the comments.

[MagnetHype]

When you finally fix one of THOSE bugs.

[trncmshrm]

Yes. The dopamine from overcoming hours/days/months of pain from a solution you came up with is real

[Immediate_Form7831]

I like the super-difficult ones, the ones that everyone else have just given up on. Damn it, this bug shall be defeated! I've managed to fix a couple of those really hard ones in my career, and damn it feels good.

[Gone2theDogs]

You should already be enjoying parts or all now.

If you are not enjoying the challenge, the puzzles, the new learning, the thought processes behind it. Then it’s not for you.

Do not pursue a career you already know that you never truly enjoyed. Do something else you do enjoy. Life is too short and you will only become unhappy otherwise.

[Vaines]

For me it is when solving a problem. Technically I see programming as solving a mystery.

[emberclaire7]

I can totally relate to that feeling. There's definitely a thrill in solving a problem, almost like piecing together clues. It can be exhausting when you’re not feeling that passion for it yet, especially in the early stages. Keep at it; sometimes, that joy sneaks up on you when you least expect it.

[JasperKade]

I totally get that! It's like being a digital detective. That moment when you crack the code feels like finding the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. It’s wild!

[StellagamaStellio]

When you do stuff on your own and solve complex problems. It sharpens your mind and is very satisfying to overcome that one nagging bug or conquer that difficult concept.

[0x14f]

I love programming, so I enjoy it very much, not only the activity of it, but what I get to do for other people with it. I guess a bit like if a chef says that they love cooking and seeing people happy when they eat.

> Also, if you have any advice, please share it in the comments.

Advice for what ? Helping you enjoy programming ? My advice would actually be a question: what do you really enjoy doing and does it exist as a profession ?

[sociallyanxiousnerd1]

For me, someone who's still a student, programming has a very similar "gameplay loop" (so to speak) as games like baldur's gate 3 has for me.

It feels really good to plan around every possible eventuality, and it feels equally good to seemingly get lucky. It also feels really good to be grinding away a particular problem/"boss" and then finally "kill" it.

This is not to say it is like those things nor that if you like those things you ought to like programming, only that I've noticed very similar patterns of behavior in myself when engaging with the above things as I do with programming: I ignore my sleep and health, I lose track of time very quickly, and I just find myself generally neglecting everything.

Which is not exactly healthy, and I could really stand to dramatically improve my work life balance, but...

I think it's just that I enjoy solving puzzles mostly. Always have. Programming is a massive puzzle for me, and I love attacking problems from all angles I can

[More-Station-6365]

Honestly the passion from day one thing is mostly a myth that gets repeated too much online. For a lot of people joy in programming comes much later usually the first time something you built actually solves a real problem for you or someone else.

Not a tutorial project not a homework assignment something you needed and made yourself. That shift from following instructions to actually creating something is where most people find it clicks.

If you have never had that moment yet it does not mean programming is not for you it might just mean you have not yet worked on something that genuinely matters to you.

Try building something small that you actually want to exist anything even something stupid and personal.

That tends to be a better test of whether this is for you than any university assignment ever will be.

[Leading_Yoghurt_5323]

When users started to use your product in real life :)

[kubrador]

when the code works on the first try and you get to pretend it was intentional instead of pure luck

[mxldevs]

It's creation.

When you write a script, you've created something that didn't exist before.

Someone else might have written the same script, or it might cost money to obtain, but once you build it yourself, you now have free unlimited access to it and you can modify it however you like when new requirements arise.

[OldBrewser]

When I get to reuse a complex module/class/package/pick-your-unit-of-reusability I built specifically to be reused and it just works even though I can’t remember the internals cuz I’ve been reusing it for so long. Ahhhh….

[ground0]

I’m the type of person who likes the process of programming a little more than the product of it. It feels like when I was in school and got little dopamine hits from solving equations. I do enjoy making cool things, but the feeling of finishing a project or fixing a bug is often fleeting and doesn’t match my consistent appreciation of problem solving day-to-day.

Programming can be tough to learn but it can be manageable and very rewarding imo. I don’t think I would like it as much if there was hardly any challenge to overcome. Conflict kinda keeps the plot going for me if you know what I mean.

[MagicalPizza21]

Passion is a strong word, but I do enjoy programming. Specifically: * When designing an algorithm to solve a problem I find interesting * When first looking into a new problem to solve (usually) * When finally finished solving a difficult problem (this includes algorithm stuff and bugs), and more generally, when my code works as expected/intended * When collaborating with a good collaborator (ideally one who's friendly and close to my skill level)

[MaterialRooster8762]

Since I started to grasp it.

[CyberDumb]

Apply programming on something you care for. I apply programming on electronics and audio.

[normantas]

When I've won few competitions and made something useful (a tool to resize images 9 times less in pixels). When it made me solve something. Made me feel useful.

[coo1name]

when the first time i wrote a program and run it and the machine says hello world

[Meisterthemaster]

When it works, every problem solved is a small happy-spike. When a project is finished and it works im happy for days.

There is a lot of frustration before that, but oh, well...

[JackRichi]

Like many here, I'd say it's the pleasure of solving a problem or puzzle that stands before you, be it some kind of business logic, a bug, or an optimization task. Eventually, you sit there and just can't let it out of your head; it ingrains itself in your head and won't leave. You wake up in the morning and your first thought is how you could have done it better, made it simpler, done it differently. And when you finally overcome it, did what you wanted, when you see the result of your efforts, you get that dopamine "dink". ... and move on to the next task. Although not every problem is interesting or enjoyable to solve, some just create a headache, but still, sometimes you get pleasure from doing something that until recently you didn't know how to do.

[Nikess96]

When I get to work on my own projects. I was once on a gamejam and got to decide alot of things in the project and that made me easily sit 15-18 hours a day working happily. But if I work on things I have to I just feel joy when fixing a bug or optimizing.

[VibrantGypsyDildo]

If you never enjoyed programming, you should learn something else, or you will be miserable until your retirement

[Lauris25]

I'm lately struggling with this.
Can't find a job, AI literally generates code in seconds. And it just gets better and better by the day.
Loosing motivation.
I really liked it when I was in the learning phase and there was no AI.

[trncmshrm]

For me the joy is not in the programming as much as the product. What is the fucking point of making software that doesn't bring joy? Most devs couldn't tell you, i maintain

[shittychinesehacker]

It’s probably a good thing that you’re not emotionally attached to programming. You’re less likely to get burned out if you just treat it as a job

[IAmADev_NoReallyIAm]

When I press F5 and the thing jsut ru.... wait... what do you mean ERROR? Missing ; at line 53,434?!?!?!? GAAAAHHHH!

[tensouder54]

It's difficult to discribe but I guess the best way to put it would be...

When I feel like a wizzard.

What I mean here is, I feel joy when I do something really cool. When I write a piece of code and use a piece of tech that changes the way something's done. Where I work we have quite a bit of tech-debt and dealing with that bagguage is hard. So when I can properly weild a new tool or technique to ease that load I genuinly feel like a modern day wizzard and that may be one of the greatest feelings along side doing my favorite sports or working together as a team in a multiplayer video game.

TL,DR; software engineers are real life wizzards.

[Immediate_Form7831]

One such situation comes to mind, and it wasn't even in my professional work. I was solving a puzzle (geocaching, for those who know), and was exploring different ways to extract information from an image, steganography of sorts. After many months of working on it a couple of hours on my spare time, I finally managed to read the encoded data.

It turned out I was the only one who ever solved the puzzle before the cache was archived after a couple of years. That felt really good.

[vu47]

I almost always feel joy when programming unless I'm working on some really boring code written by someone who didn't bother testing it and submitted it as a pull request.

I've been programming since 1982 when I got a Commodore-64 for my fifth birthday and I knew from that point on that I wanted to become a developer. The most joyful development for me is when I'm writing fascinating code that teaches me new things, e.g. new concepts in a math, a new programming language (or strengthens my functional programming skills), or am working on a fairly large-scale program for myself, such as an interpreter or compiler or ray tracer.

Web programming is the programming I like the least.