Geekflex

I love programming. It’s a passion of mine that I’ve held onto for as long as I can remember. I have what seems like a natural aptitude for it, and I consider myself extremely lucky for having discovered this passion early on so that I could follow it into a career. After a day’s work I feel fulfilled and satisfied, like I accomplished something worthwhile. Most of the time, I also feel like I’ve learned something; which is the strongest motivator for me.

When I was a student, I would spend all night in front of my computer. I’d be learning programming languages, working on pet projects, and solving programming-contest challenges. I remember pulling an all-nighter several years ago, teaching myself C# and XML-RPC by building a simple application that let me post to my blog. Yet it seems that once I graduated and started working full time, my motivation to spend the same time and energy on pet projects diminished.

The issue is what I’ll call my social quota. When I was a student I was surrounded by other people all day. Whether I was in class, in the engineering student association’s office or at a social event, there were always fellow students to talk to. Coming home after a day rich in social interactions, I would relish the solitude of sitting in front of my computer and programming the night away.

I became dependent on the levels of social interaction that I would reach in a given day of school. To this day I can’t think of a more rewarding experience than meeting new people, talking and socializing. I became a people-person, and I’ve been as-yet unable to reconcile my need to socialize with people and my passion for programming.

Programming is ultimately a solitary activity. There is only one keyboard attached to the computer. Even when you work with a team — and indeed, one of my favourite things about the profession is when we hammer out the solution to a problem as a group — eventually you have to go back to that computer and code the solution that’s floating around in your head. After sitting, alone, in front of a computer for the better part of a day, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer, at home, for the better part of the evening.¹

It’s not just programming, but most solitary activities that I have no interest in doing in my free time. Social contact is like a drug for me and I get very antsy if I go without it for long periods of time. While there is some social contact at work — and believe me this is something that’s crucial to keeping me going throughout the day — my quota is usually nowhere near filled. Once I’ve left the office for the day, I’ll do anything for a night out with friends. I get energized by being in a crowd. Whenever I’m faced with the choice of doing something alone or doing something in a group, I will always choose the group.

All that being said, I’m quite satisfied with both my career up to now and my lifestyle. It’s okay to spend my days programming and problem solving, and then relax with my friends in the evening. I imagine if the situation was reversed, and I were working with people all day, then I would probably shut myself away in the evenings and I’d be blogging about my Alone-Time Quota (or, Why I Don’t Go Out In The Evenings).

I don’t blog often. The last time I wrote a post was 3 months ago, in August. When I started this blog I had intended to stick to a regular writing schedule, but clearly that’s not how things turned out. I’m very proud of the articles I’ve written here so far, and I let myself get trapped into thinking that each post must be better than the last. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say recently — on the contrary, I’ve had a number of topics bouncing around in my head and I’ve even written down quick outlines and notes for them.

The problem is that at the end of the day I have trouble organizing my thoughts into prose. Written language is so much more subtle than spoken language. I’m much more fluid when speaking to someone (especially if there’s a pint of beer in my hand). I thought of recording a podcast and instantly rejected the idea on the grounds that since I never listen to podcasts, I couldn’t reasonably expect anyone to listen to mine. Writing it is, then.

When I read 7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School I realized I was stuck on Bad Habit #2: “Expecting someone to hand you a writing prompt.” No one is going to tell me what I should be writing about, so I can’t keep bouncing around ideas until someone says “Okay, Skrud, I want to hear about x.” The hardest part about writing is figuring out what the hell I want to say. Once I know what I want to say the words flow naturally, but being indecisive about what I want to say is my writer’s block.

In a way, this is a lot like programming. I’ve always felt that 90% of the effort that goes into programming is just figuring out what it is you want to program. When faced with a particular problem to solve, the bulk of the work is solving it. Translating that solution into code is trivial by comparison. As I become more experienced in the art of programming, solutions become more obvious. Being familiar with the systems I work on allows to make quick assumptions that help me hone in on the problem areas much sooner.

With writing, I often find myself stuck in the what the hell is it I want to write-phase during which I stare at a blank page for uncomfortably long periods of time. Or worse, I get the ideas criss-crossed in my head and start going off on several tangents, failing to combine everything into a cohesive idea. In programming, this is akin to writing brand new APIs and modifying miscellaneous libraries instead of focusing on the problem at hand.

If experience in programming makes solving programming problems easier, then experience in writing should make the writing process easier. The more I do it, the more naturally and easily I’ll be able to put my thoughts into words. In other words, if I want to write more, I need to write more. Duh.