A\u00a0boss of mine once\u00a0said to me\u00a0“I wish I had your passion and interest in coding – I lost that a long time ago”.\u00a0 I think that is kind of sad, especially if you make your living making software.\u00a0 I don’t think I could\u00a0spend each work day doing something I\u00a0was bored with – but of course, a lot of people do that, and\u00a0I’ve worked with a lot of programmers who have lost interest in programming.\u00a0 Seems they were once interested, and now they no longer are.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0I think part of the reason I keep my interest is that I continuously “refill the cup”.\u00a0 When\u00a0I sense I am starting\u00a0to loose interest (or even long before that)\u00a0I look for a way to refill the cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One note: I don’t really think it is ever “too late” to regain interest.<\/p>\n
I’d like to share a couple of ways that work for me: Intentional Practice\/Effortful Study, and Programming as a Social Activity.<\/p>\n
My friend Jason Kerney did a talk on Intentional Practice at the San Diego .NET Development Group back in March.\u00a0 I have a lot of respect for Jason.\u00a0 He has an infectious passion for programming, clean code, and continuous improvement and I always learn a lot from him.<\/p>\n
I had talked with Jason about this idea and like it a lot:\u00a0 It’s important for us programmers to intentionally practice our craft.\u00a0 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<\/a>. In this article from 2008\u00a0Jeff Atwood\u00a0quotes an article by Steve Yegge (from 2005) called Practicing Programming.\u00a0 You can read this article at http:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/steveyegge2\/practicing-programming<\/a>. Steve refers to some other articles, and I think if you follow the references in those\u00a0articles you eventually end up at Kevin Bacon\u00a0– but you know all about that.\u00a0 With all this great stuff\u00a0already written about practicing our coding craft I won’t have to regurgitate that here.<\/p>\n Anyway – Jeff quotes a Scientific American article that uses the term: “Effortful Study”.\u00a0 I like that, and suggest you read that article too, and then tell me what it is about.<\/p>\n I’ve been meeting up with a few friends at work, at code camps, and remotely during\u00a0the last few years to intentionally practice programming.\u00a0 We engage in effortful\u00a0study to focus on very simple things that lead to code excellence.\u00a0I have been learning a lot.\u00a0 Hovever, even more imortant to me is that I feel rejuvinated after these study sessions.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of the Katas have been very simple, others have been very complicated.\u00a0 Sometimes we move quickly to a good solution, sometimes we flounder about and don’t get anywhere.\u00a0 Regardless, I have a great time interacting with my fellow programmers and find I’ve refilled my cup.\u00a0 And that is the concept I call:<\/p>\n People get together to watch sports, go on bike rides, have dinner, go to movies, play games,\u00a0get drunk,\u00a0and lots of other fun stuff JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT.\u00a0 Programming can be done the same way.\u00a0 Two people or a whole group of people.\u00a0 You can do simple Kata exercises, complicated code jam style contests, work on some Open Source project of mutual interest.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0\u00a0A friend of mine (the brilliant and dynamic Llewellyn Falco) used to have “Monday Night Programming” get togethers every week at his house.\u00a0\u00a0What a great idea!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I don’t know how or why this works for me, but it\u00a0does – every time I do one of these code dojos or attend a coding gathering,\u00a0or\u00a0some similar activity\u00a0it definately stimulates my interest in the work I love to do: programming.\u00a0<\/p>\n It might not work for you, but I love it.\u00a0 Next time you run into me let’s sit down, open up the laptop, and code something – what do you say?\u00a0 Come on, it could be fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Losing Interest?\u00a0 Refill Your Cup Before it is Too Late A\u00a0boss of mine once\u00a0said to me\u00a0“I wish I had your passion and interest in coding – I lost that a long time ago”.\u00a0 I think that is kind of sad, especially if you make your living making software.\u00a0 I don’t think I could\u00a0spend each work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zuill.us\/WoodyZuill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Programming as a Social Activity Just for the Fun of it<\/h3>\n