A passion for programming. Chapter 10. Fall in Love or Throw It

Returned from draft

About transfer

This is the translation of Chapter 10 of The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development . Its author, Chad Fowler, is a talented Ruby developer, a well-known speaker at a conference on Ruby and IT in general. Former saxophonist, and now - CTO 6Wunderkinder.

The book talks about different aspects of a programmer’s career, gives interesting advice for both novice developers, as well as well-established professionals. The book consists of 53 chapters (besides, after some chapters there are interesting stories, one of which has already been translated twice into Habré). The chapters are fairly independent and you can get to know them in any order. The book will appeal to many programmers who are interested in the view of a distinguished professional on a modern IT career. And of course, I recommend to buy this book in electronic or printed form as a sign of gratitude to the author.

Chapter 10. Fall in Love or Throw It

This may sound like another encouraging nonsense, aimed at introducing you into an idealistic trance, but this thought is too important to get around it. In order to work well, you must have a passion for work. If it is not, it will be noticeable.
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When my wife and I went to Bangalore (Bangalore), I was surprised. For the first time in my career, I expected to find like-minded, techies with a passion for learning. I was waiting for an exciting evening life with IT parties and deep philosophical discussions about methodologies and software development techniques. I expected to see the Indian Silicon Valley, which is bursting at the seams, overflowing with artisans who are passionate about the great art of software development.
But all I saw was a lot of people who just get paid and some really passionate artisans.

Just like at home.

Of course, I did not immediately realize that it was the same at home. I had a similar experience in the US, but I always thought that I just got into a bad city, or a bad company. I considered such situations exceptions. I think all programmers at some point come to this thought. I just still haven't found the right environment.

I started my career in the computer department of the university on the blind recommendation of my friend Walter. He saw me at the computer often enough to think that I could make it work better than others. I did not believe in it, because I had no formal training. Was I the whole saxophonist who liked computer games? But Walter himself filled out a questionnaire for me and arranged an interview. I was accepted without asking a single technical question, and I immediately set to work.

When I first came to work, I was afraid that everyone would consider me a deceiver, which I, in fact, was. What does a saxophonist do with educated professionals? In the end, I worked with people with a degree in computer science. And I, with unfinished music education, tried to pretend that I knew something.

But a few days later the truth surfaced. These people have no idea what they are doing! The masters of computer science watched me working and recorded!

At first I thought that idiots surrounded me. After all, I didn't even have a formal education. I spent the nights playing in groups at local bars, and days playing games. I learned to work with computers just because I was interested in them. I even learned to write programs just because I wanted to make my own games. I came home late after a noisy evening at the bar and looked at Gopher until morning in search of programming textbooks. Then I slept, and when I woke up, I continued to study until I didn’t have to leave, and everything repeated again. I interrupted the training on my favorite games, the food, and continued fooling around with Gopher and some compiler. ^[one]

Work because you can not work.

Looking back, I realize that I was obsessed, but in a good way. I felt about the same thing when I started to write classical music or improvised on a saxophone. I studied everything I could. Many of my musician friends thought it was an irresponsible distraction from a real career. I did not do this in order to build a new career. I did it because I could not do. ^[2]

That was the difference between me and my ineffective retraining colleagues. ^[3] Passion.

These people had no idea why they were doing IT. They got into this area because they considered the profession of a programmer to be highly paid, they were persuaded by their parents, or they simply could not think of anything better in college. This is reflected in their effectiveness.

If you think about biographies or documentaries about famous people, you will notice the same obsession, the same passionate behavior. Renowned saxophonist John Coltrane (rumor has it that) rehearsed so much that his lips began to bleed.

Of course, natural talent plays a big role in abilities. We all cannot become Mozarts or Coltrane. But we can get away from mediocrity by finding a job for which we have passion.

This may be the area of ​​technology or business that you like. On the other hand, it may be a specific area that drags you down. Perhaps you are meant for small or large teams. For agile or hard processes. ^[4] In any case, you need to spend time to find something that suits you.

You can postpone it, but sooner or later the lack of passion will catch up with you.

Act!

1. Look for a job that you will have passion for.
2. Starting Monday, keep a small journal for the next two weeks. Every working day, mark your level of excitement on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 means that you would rather stay at home instead of work, and 10 - it's hard for you to stay in bed because you are overwhelmed with ideas on how to do another cool thing).
   After two weeks, review the results. Where are the peaks? Where is the trend going? More high marks or low? What grade would you give if it were a school test?
   Over the next two weeks, every morning, plan how to do so tomorrow to put yourself in the top ten. Think about how to make today so that tomorrow you could not wait for the beginning of the working day. Record yesterday’s expectations every day. If after two weeks everything looks bad, perhaps it’s time to change something drastically.

[1] - [...] and then go back to goofing around I could get working.
[2] - I couldn’t be.
[3] - [...] my overeducated, underperforming colleagues at work
[4] - Or rigid processes. Or agile processes.