My story is very similar: teenager obsessed with programming, working with paltry early-days computers (Sinclair ZX-80, Apple II, TRS-80, etc.), writing Mersenne-prime & other such fascinating-but-obscure programs, got a $4/hr job writing dBASE II programs for an apple farm, way advanced in college, 20+ year career as a software engineer.
I don't think I ever caught myself writing code for my employer and thinking "hey, I really enjoy this".
Speak for yourself. I wrote lots of code for my employers thinking "hey, I really enjoy this". I love my job. Oh sure sometimes the situation gets hard/grinding/depressing, but that's what ANY job will do. On the whole I REALLY ENJOY PROGRAMMING AS A CAREER.
My story is very similar: teenager obsessed with programming, working with paltry early-days computers (Sinclair ZX-80, Apple II, TRS-80, etc.), writing Mersenne-prime & other such fascinating-but-obscure programs, got a $4/hr job writing dBASE II programs for an apple farm, way advanced in college, 20+ year career as a software engineer.
I don't think I ever caught myself writing code for my employer and thinking "hey, I really enjoy this".
Speak for yourself. I wrote lots of code for my employers thinking "hey, I really enjoy this". I love my job. Oh sure sometimes the situation gets hard/grinding/depressing, but that's what ANY job will do. On the whole I REALLY ENJOY PROGRAMMING AS A CAREER.