Business or Pleasure? Programming for Both.
Trying to keep day to day programming interesting.
One thing that I feel distinguishes a lot of average developers from great ones is, in my opinion, their attitude towards programming. This usually reflects the developer’s view on his own work and what he is willing to do to make something work.
This might not be the developer’s fault, as computer science’s higher education usually drowns them into complex theory rather than showing them how to make something cool with what they already know. This breeds programmers that create complex projects instead of remembering why they got into programming in the first place.
Because they enjoyed it.
If programming (or any other job) feels like you are carrying a weight, go out and find a smaller project that you might actually love.
For me, it was a music app — Gammes/iScales. I knew that it was something that may or may not bring money to the table, but was of interest to me since it was tightly connected to my hobby. I knew nothing about programming for iPhone and object-oriented programming, and only had a rough idea what music scales were about. Music theory being well established and logical, it was something that was relatively easy for me to incorporate into the app.
That way I never got bored of the project, and got to finish it from A to Z.
What I learned
Creating that first app, taught me about Xcode, Objective-C, Web development, research and content writing (since I didn’t know much about scales back then). It even brushed up my skills in English, German and Chinese structures since the app got translated.
I try to release a little iOS game every year, to force myself to start something from scratch every now and again. They are time-consuming, but allow me to explore new frameworks/technologies that are currently trending.
I try to keep the project small, functional, and fun to make sure I complete it.
The revenues are not what matter here, but what you can get from it. That way it motivates you to actually finish those projects, instead of just adding another one to the pile you’ll never see to completion.
Example : Swift + Apple Watch
When Swift came along, lots of developers jumped on board, but many companies didn’t. I am lucky that Breather uses whatever technology makes sense and contributes to the projects at hand, but it’s not always the case in consulting.
This is when personal projects become your only channel of learning.
Whether you like Swift or the Apple watch or not is irrelevant. I believe it’s in your best interest to at least peek at how they both work, and how they interact within their contexts. This can be applied to practically any field.
Feel like you have “no free time” to do any of this? Think of an even smaller project, part of a project, a gist on github, a sketch, a conversation, etc. that you can explore further.
Keep things interesting by creating things that interest you, and stop programming only from a business perspective — change your attitude towards your work.
TL;DR : Find your happy thought
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjnjiHXdASo
