The life of a programmer

This blog has a new home:
http://selectioneffect.info/blog/programming/the-life-of-a-programmer/


I guess I'll always be a programmer. And I guess I've always been one. You can be a programmer without ever touching a computer, if you're inclined to view it as a state of mind, or as a philosophy.

As it happens, I am so inclined, but I am also a computer programmer by profession. Or by obsession, if you happen to talk to my fiancée about it.

A programmer starts life without knowing he's a programmer, or that programming can be done, or that programming is even necessary. He regards the world around him as correct, perfect, and complete. Nothing needs changing, and nothing needs improving. Life, and the world, is good.

Typically this phase doesn't last very long.

When the good doctor slaps you on the behind and you are forced to take your first gulp of addictive oxygen, you begin noticing little glitches all around you. Things that don't fit. Clear signs of people powering and sustaining otherwise untenable systems. Manual labour and physical work, repetitive and mind-numbing and bureaucratic: this is the world in which people think they live.

Because they made it that way.

Programming is the glue that holds the universe, the world, and the society we made for ourselves, together.

Programming assists the quest for a better world, and makes possible the science on which our entire civilization depends for its survival.

And, oh yeah, its a lot of fun!