What motivates you to write code?

Peasantoid · 2009-05-26 02:56:43

I write code mainly to automate things and make my life easier. For example, it's a pain to manually copy parts of the ABS tree to somewhere I have write access and then run makepkg, so I wrote a shell script to do all that for me. I'm guessing this was also the driving force behind package managers: convenience.

What about you? What's your motivation?

karol · 2009-05-26 03:07:54

+1 to convenience/automation.
For now I mainly read code and try to figure out how can I use it to do sth I need/want, like a different style of wiki templates. Let's call it diversity. The code is malleable.

Allan · 2009-05-26 04:31:01

Money motivates my work coding and making my system better motivates my Arch coding.

jowilkin · 2009-05-26 04:32:59

Implementing research ideas and seeing them in action has motivated most of my recent coding.

karol · 2009-05-26 04:35:14

Good morning, Allan :-)
Do you mean that you code Arch because you need a reliable system for your work or is it a hobby?

dannytatom · 2009-05-26 04:40:58

A mix of entertainment and giving back to the OS community that I leech off of so often.

Wra!th · 2009-05-26 05:21:33

Scripts for automation, rest I did for personal "profit" more or less ( every project I've ever worked on was just so I can learn stuff I didn't know already).

Allan · 2009-05-26 05:43:16

karol wrote:

Good morning, Allan :-)
Do you mean that you code Arch because you need a reliable system for your work or is it a hobby?

Mostly a hobby, but having my system setup just the way I like it is a bonus. That is why I focus on makepkg/pacman and packaging utilities.

HashBox · 2009-05-26 05:52:42

My main motivation to code is just to know that I can. Often I'll think of small utilities or some other app I'd like to use, and if I feel it's withing my abilities I'll go away and code it in whatever language is appropriate. Quite often I'll find myself using C for small utility type apps/hacks, or a bit of shell scripting to automate stuff, or if I have an idea for a slightly bigger project I might use a language such as C# to make it a little easier to get a prototype done.
Basically this.

xaff · 2009-05-26 06:14:02

If I'm doing something manually and I know I will be doing it at least 3 times, I'm making a script for it. Otherwise I often find myself needing some small utility and I'm not happy with what other people wrote and write it myself. And then there's learning a new language just for fun of it and the best way to learn is simply to write something.

livibetter · 2009-05-26 06:19:15

boring life and plenty of time, I must find some ways to live a day. coding is one, but don't have many ideas.

Aprz · 2009-05-26 09:18:41

There are various reasons why I program, but I mainly program to test ideas, practice what I learned, or just for kicks.

MrAllan · 2009-05-26 09:54:48

Just for fun, really. I have yet to learn a lot to be able to code usefull things.

karol · 2009-05-26 13:15:45

@livibetter
I took a look at your website and dare to propose a solution: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page

Ghost1227 · 2009-05-26 13:23:38

Solving problems or providing little tidbits for the community.

namegame · 2009-05-26 20:42:14

Two things:

1. Working towards a degree in Computer Science motivates me.

2. I'm also a student employee of my university. I do web programming (PHP, XSLT, MySQL, etc.) for them. I also program in LSL (Linden Scripting Language) as my University is researching the possibility of using Second Life as a means to teach Distance Education classes.

livibetter · 2009-05-26 20:53:05

karol wrote:

@livibetter
I took a look at your website and dare to propose a solution: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page

Hmm... never seriously thought of contributing to a wiki. thanks for the advise! I will definitely try.

peets · 2009-05-27 02:29:07

For convenience and freedom. Also for those great "flow" moments when I focus on the task for hours on end without noticing how time flies, or that sudden rush of energy and happiness when something finally works/is complete.
... I just solved a stupid programming problem that I've had for almost a month; now it works exactly as I want it to. Yesss!

Last edited by peets (2009-05-31 05:01:26)

Peasantoid · 2009-05-27 02:44:40

peets: Mmm yeah, the satisfaction is a big part.

Another one of my motivations is that coding lets me slack off from doing more important, less fun stuff.

Jaejae · 2009-05-27 03:12:31

I do it to make my life easier, although I often spend more time writing a script than I would have taking doing the task manually

Lexion · 2009-05-27 03:27:58

I rarely code to make my life easier. I mostly write code to

- Make other's lifes easier
- Make me happy
- Learn new languages (currently haskell)

And also because it's not there and should be. This can refer to code chunks or programs.

Oh, and to make robots do stuff which is my main thing that I do.

livibetter · 2009-05-27 04:20:12

Lexion wrote:

I rarely code to make my life easier. I mostly write code to
- Make other's lifes easier
- Make me happy
- Learn new languages (currently haskell)

I tried to do first one at first place, but doesn't seem to be achieved yet. Because I haven't heard much from users, do I really have? So, currently my code can only make myself happy. I tried to learn Haskell months ago, but I gave up quite quickly, wish you can learn it well, and master it someday!

Last edited by livibetter (2009-05-27 04:20:49)

Jaejae · 2009-05-27 08:08:33

I've tried to learn other languages, but I get sick of writing "Hello world" twenty different ways

Gotta be able to write something useful off the bat, which I can do with shell scripting.

All this being said, I have made some progress with C.

Aprz · 2009-05-27 09:16:40

Yeah, you shouldn't stop with just "Hello, world". Most languages that uses the same syntax as C usually are pointless to learn if you don't learn about their language specific features. These days though, a lot of high level languages offer the same features and it's just a matter of which one is less redundant to type.

However, it is fun to learn how to do "Hello, world!" in different ways using the same language. Like in C, I know how to do it using: stdio.h, ncurses.h, and linux/kernel.h. Small recommendation to anyone learning C right now, ncurses.h is a lot of fun.

Edit: And no, I don't mean different ways as in obfuscated coding ("Let's write a loop that displays each letter one-by-one!"). More example. For anyone that knows Java, it's like writing "Hello, world!" in your terminal versus writing "Hello, world!" using awt.

Last edited by Aprz (2009-05-27 09:20:38)

karol · 2009-05-27 10:59:18

Lexion wrote:

I rarely code to make my life easier.

Lexion wrote:

Learn new languages (currently haskell)

I get the picture ;-)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-05-26 02:56:43

What motivates you to write code?

#2 2009-05-26 03:07:54

Re: What motivates you to write code?

#3 2009-05-26 04:31:01

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#5 2009-05-26 04:35:14

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