Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Agility

Losing Interest?  Refill Your Cup Before it is Too Late

A boss of mine once said to me “I wish I had your passion and interest in coding – I lost that a long time ago”.  I think that is kind of sad, especially if you make your living making software.  I don’t think I could spend each work day doing something I was bored with – but of course, a lot of people do that, and I’ve worked with a lot of programmers who have lost interest in programming.  Seems they were once interested, and now they no longer are. 

Perhaps I’m just naturally interested in programming and can’t help myself, or maybe I have a mental disorder – but I seem to be able to stay engaged and still enjoy programming every day. I think part of the reason I keep my interest is that I continuously “refill the cup”.  When I sense I am starting to loose interest (or even long before that) I look for a way to refill the cup. 

One note: I don’t really think it is ever “too late” to regain interest.

I’d like to share a couple of ways that work for me: Intentional Practice/Effortful Study, and Programming as a Social Activity.

Intentional Practice and Effortful Study

My friend Jason Kerney did a talk on Intentional Practice at the San Diego .NET Development Group back in March.  I have a lot of respect for Jason.  He has an infectious passion for programming, clean code, and continuous improvement and I always learn a lot from him.

I had talked with Jason about this idea and like it a lot:  It’s important for us programmers to intentionally practice our craft.  I remembered reading an article on the topic somewhere, and tracked it down at Coding Horor: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/06/the-ultimate-code-kata.html. In this article from 2008 Jeff Atwood quotes an article by Steve Yegge (from 2005) called Practicing Programming.  You can read this article at http://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/practicing-programming. Steve refers to some other articles, and I think if you follow the references in those articles you eventually end up at Kevin Bacon – but you know all about that.  With all this great stuff already written about practicing our coding craft I won’t have to regurgitate that here.

Anyway – Jeff quotes a Scientific American article that uses the term: “Effortful Study”.  I like that, and suggest you read that article too, and then tell me what it is about.

I’ve been meeting up with a few friends at work, at code camps, and remotely during the last few years to intentionally practice programming.  We engage in effortful study to focus on very simple things that lead to code excellence. I have been learning a lot.  Hovever, even more imortant to me is that I feel rejuvinated after these study sessions.   Some of the Katas have been very simple, others have been very complicated.  Sometimes we move quickly to a good solution, sometimes we flounder about and don’t get anywhere.  Regardless, I have a great time interacting with my fellow programmers and find I’ve refilled my cup.  And that is the concept I call:

Programming as a Social Activity Just for the Fun of it

People get together to watch sports, go on bike rides, have dinner, go to movies, play games, get drunk, and lots of other fun stuff JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT.  Programming can be done the same way.  Two people or a whole group of people.  You can do simple Kata exercises, complicated code jam style contests, work on some Open Source project of mutual interest.  Whatever.  A friend of mine (the brilliant and dynamic Llewellyn Falco) used to have “Monday Night Programming” get togethers every week at his house.  What a great idea!  

I don’t know how or why this works for me, but it does – every time I do one of these code dojos or attend a coding gathering, or some similar activity it definately stimulates my interest in the work I love to do: programming. 

It might not work for you, but I love it.  Next time you run into me let’s sit down, open up the laptop, and code something – what do you say?  Come on, it could be fun.