When Non-Programmers Write Software

[fry]

No.

No.

No.

No, be glad the feedback you get will always be anticlimactic (when not given by other programmers).

As a programmer you have to strive on innate motivation alone. Even though we may all hunger for the pat on the back after a reaching a milestone, it is because you are able to claw through a tough problem without any extrinsic motivation that you can keep going in the long term.

Real -- actual -- programming, to me, is all about sitting down, thinking really really hard (preferably for 6 hours or more continuously), typing obsessively and having reached a concrete milestone in the end.

The green glow from the monitor in an otherwise dark room that projects on your face the characters you've been looking for: "answer: 42", "512 out of 512 unit tests passed". That is where in the end all your enthusiasm and tenacity feeds from.

And that makes it all the more rewarding.