This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Simon Barker
I'll be honest, coding isn't as fun for me as it used to be.
Since moving into it as my full time role I have found that I don't get the same satisfaction I once felt. The joy of solving a tricky problem or simply seeing my idea running on a phone had sort of gone.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like coding as a hobby was all sunshine and rainbows. I wanted to punt my laptop out a window many times when making StockControllerApp or OneQstn, but since "going Pro" and thinking about testing, DevOps, Infrastructure-as-code and keeping up with the never ending cycle of JS frameworks, the shine has worn off.
That is until the last couple of weekends.
I started playing around with PhaserJS thanks to seeing @pau.codes talking about it and I have made a silly little game, well two actually as I have completed two tutorials so far and thoroughly enjoyed them. I was still using TypeScript and had to spend some time fighting with Parcel for packaging the code up (as my Instagram followers saw on my stories ?) but overall it has been a delightful experience.
Doing this reminded me that programming is fun. Making things is fun and the things I list above that I find less fun aren't a core part of creation. I believe that they are required in a professional setting as part of a team, but I have let the best practices of professional web development bleed into the time I spend programming as a hobby.
I have put off making some ideas because I need to create a CI/CD pipeline, or it needs to be auto scaling on Kubernetes or have more than 80% test coverage. I let those things stop me from just building fun things, from having fun.
I let the social media accounts I follow for best practices take the fun out of my passion, that's on me and I am taking steps to course correct.
If I want to make a penguin slide around dodging angry snowmen or make a stocks analyser that lives in one JS file without a unit test in sight, for me, for fun, then that is what I plan to do.
If you're new to development, or like me have been doing it for well over a decade, and you've lost the spark you had, maybe take a look at how you are approaching the code you are writing. Are you making it harder than it needs to be? Are you sucking out the fun for no reason?
I was ?
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Simon Barker
Simon Barker | Sciencx (2021-08-23T19:44:35+00:00) I forgot to have fun, are you?. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2021/08/23/i-forgot-to-have-fun-are-you/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.