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Well, I agree with you. But I was just trying to be foolish. With the "instant gratification" quote I meant an innuendo to "self gratification", like in replace the company of the opposite sex with a computer... yeah, stupid! I was just having fun..
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I knew what you meant Eddie - I just wasn't going to go there! :
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I think by "instant gratification" he meant the fact that you can quickly see the result of your efforts on the screen and say to yourself, "Yeah baby, this is looking good!". This is most evident when you're working on GUI application with a RAD tool like VB. You put in a few minutes/hours of effort and almost immediately you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
... of course this is on a good day. On a bad day you get to curse at the screen and wonder how in the world they could have hired you... 
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Programming is, by turns, the most rewarding profession, the most frustrating profession, the greatest high, the lowest low, the easiest job in the world, the most difficult job in the world, the easiest to explain, the most difficult to explain, a job in which you are always learning, and a job in which you are always teaching...well, you get the drift.
At the tender age of 15, in 1969, I wrote my first program (in FORTRAN on an IBM mainframe), and I knew from the first moment that I had found what I wanted to do. I have since held almost every job title that exists in this field, but I never stopped writing code, and I've even managed to come full circle and go back to developing code full time.
It's been over thirty years, and probably as many programming languages. I still love it today as much as I did when I was 15. I am still learning something new every day, and I still get blown away when I see someone pushing a collection of electrons that I created from nothing -- just my own ideas, lots of blood, not enough sleep, too many jolts of caffeine, and too many frustrating discussions with users.
Here's to the little child in every programmer, and to hell with anyone who can't understand why our hobby is the same as our job
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I describe myself as a cross between an architect and Sherlock Holmes.
I create virtual skyscrapers then work out why the toilets aren't working on the 5th floo
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I could not have said it better. I would not have said it better. Your post actually got me to re-enable active desktop so that I could display your quote together with a picture of a gaily dressed mental patient in a Mardi Gras parade in Rio that previously was my background.
I hope that came across the way I intended, Ravi...
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Gosh, I am humbled.
/ravi
"There is always one more bug"
ravib@ravib.com
http://www.ravib.com
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This topic is a tricky one in that there isn't a single answer to this question for most people. Still - it's a question I've been asked by heaps of people looking to change careers, and also by friends asking what it is that can keep someone at their desk for so many hours a week
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