My Joy of Programming - Karan Mishra

Unicorns. and Rainbows. Besides being Ruby gems, they also happen to exactly articulate the feeling I have in my head the moment I start thinking about programming.

Ever since I first opened up “Doom.exe” in notepad and stared at disbelief at the gibberish machine code, something has always driven me to figure out the the underlying DNA of every piece of software I have chanced upon. Obviously as the years have gone by, the amount of software out there has increased a trillion fold, but every now and then, I still chance upon a masterpiece which immediately attracts a “holy cow!” from me. It happens less often now-a-days but still…

Doom caught my fancy as it was the first FPS I ever played (it was way back in 1994.) After poring through the machine code and trying to make sense of it, I started down my first programming project. Making my own game. The rough tasklist:

• Think of a game idea
• ???
• $$$

The figuring out the ??? has definitely been the executive summary of my life story. And I guess that is something I share with every programmer out there. Sometimes, I don’t even care pretend to care about the idea (step #1) and the business model around it (step #3). If the challenge is strong enough and calls to me, that’s good enough. The years have made me shift priorities of course, but figuring out the unknown still has a weird hold on me. It calls to me in a very animalistic fashion; and hopefully will for years to come… It helps drown out the bureaucracy of the work place and get into the zone; a zone that I fondly call “Joy of Programming”

What do you really love about programming? What are the projects that you enjoy working on?

Tell us what your joy of programming is

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