Falling in love with writing code
How DHH talking about Ruby got me wanting to fall in love with the craft of coding
I was listening to the Rework podcast by the folks at Basecamp, and something that @DHH (co-founder of Basecamp, and creator of Ruby on Rails) said made me sit up.
He talked about how he started on Ruby, from an initial curiosity, to deciding to spend a couple of weeks trying it out when he was first building out Basecamp, and then eventually feeling like wanting to write Ruby code when he wakes up, just because he enjoys the elegance of the language.
In other words, he just described how he fell in love…with his craft like it was a person.
I was fascinated, in awe and to be completely honest, slightly envious. Even a tinge of jealousy.
Because I want that. I want to wake up everyday and feel like I want to keep doing this work, get better at my craft as an entrepreneur, programmer, maker, marketer, etc. I also want to enjoy coding the same way he does. The pure simplicity and clarity of that desire, that enjoyment…still eludes me. Right now for coding, I feel like I’m driving for the first time, clumsily bumping from one roadblock to another, and barely making it through to my destination. It’s hard to describe the experience as enjoyable. I’m only grateful to ‘survive’ and to launch something.
But hearing his love story with Ruby inspired me to want that for myself. To try to work towards that, somehow. I don’t know how, but hazarding a guess, I think it simply involves more coding, and trying to take joy in the little things, not just the end product.
Just like dating, and slowly falling in love.
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