In the beginning there was only curiosity
I remember as if it were yesterday (and twenty years is nothing) when I wrote my first “Hello World” in BASIC on my Casio 9850GB calculator with 32k of memory. The excitement, the feeling of getting a machine to follow an instruction I had given it. I wasn’t thinking about the salary, or features, or the next sprint. It was pure and simple curiosity and wonder at creating something out of nothing. That initial spark, that moment of magic, is something that all of us in this profession should try to keep alive.
Beyond the profession
If you’ve been working professionally for a while, it has surely happened to you (or it will) that you fall into a routine: sprints, deadlines, client requirements… they can make us lose sight of what initially drew us to this profession. Have you looked at code and felt that it’s no longer exciting, that it has become a routine? If so, let me tell you something: you can still recover the magic. This is exactly where personal projects become invaluable.
When we code for pleasure, extraordinary things happen:
- Creativity flows freely without the constraints of commercial requirements
- We experiment with new technologies without fear of failure
- We recover that sense of wonder that motivated us to start
- We develop skills that go far beyond our current position
Going back to programming for the sheer enjoyment of it can transform not only your relationship with code, but with yourself. An important tip (one I need to remind myself of more often): don’t judge yourself. Ugly code? Unformatted commits? A thousand identical projects out there? Who cares? Just as an artist paints or a writer writes for the pure pleasure of creating, we programmers can find deep satisfaction in the act of coding. Every line of code is an opportunity for expression, and the result… a small source of pride: “I made that.”
Not everything has to be an ambitious project. Sometimes, coding for pleasure means creating small scripts to automate everyday tasks, experimenting with a new programming language, or simply solving programming puzzles for fun.
More than a profession
Programming is more than a profession; it’s an art, a way of thinking and a passion. When we code for pleasure, we not only improve our technical skills, we also keep alive the flame that led us to choose this path in the first place.
For those who have lost this connection with programming, I encourage you to recover it. Dedicate time to personal projects, experiment with new technologies, fill your GitHub/GitLab/Gitea with unfinished projects… The reward goes far beyond the code: it’s rediscovering the joy of creating.