Time to think

Why am i here?
In the software industry? Did i ever reallly have a choice? I mean after doing computer engineering, it wouldn't have made much sense for me to start my medical practice. Right? And then the only reason i did engineering in the first place was cause i was scared shit of studying those 10-inch thick medical books.
So then what is my reason? Is it the money? Well it could have been, till a few years ago, but not anymore. Is it job satisfaction? I don't think so. At least not by doing the kind of work that's there is the industry these days. Is it job security? No. Is it the lifestyle? No. And no to a number of different reasons i could think of.
So then why AM i here? I have asked this question to myself a 1000 times during the last year and everytime i have drawn a blank. I even convinced myself for a while that a job is a job. It's just a mean of earning a livelihood. All that job-satisfaction nonsense is just that - non-sense. Somehow, working on boring projects under stupid deadlines, I forgot why i was here in the first place. I had become really jaded. 2 months sitting on the bench didn't help things either. I was confused whether i should quit all this and prepare for an MBA degree. After all, THAT certainly seems to be a panacea in everyone's opinion. "...get and MBA degree and earn big bucks. An MBA degree is the quickest way to the top...." . And i almost bought that.
But then, today, after 365 days of working in an industry i was not sure was right for me, I discovered my reason for being here.
And all it took for the realisation to strike was....
A small program. Hardly 30 lines of code. Just that. A program to calculate the largest prime number after a given number.
Let me explain.
I am learning Perl. Part of my new project. And as any programmer worth his while will tell you, the best way to learn a new language is by programming in it. So, as i started making small basic programs in Perl ( factorial, sorting, prime number, you know the kind..), something remarkable happened. For a while, I was transported back in time to my first year in college. To the time when i first started learning C. By making small programs just like these. And i felt what i had felt back then. The pure joy of coding. The thrill of running your program from the command line. The fun of tweaking around till you get it right. The joy of optimizing a 30 line code to a 20 line one which ends up running twice as slow. The first look of dissapointment when you find out that recursive programs, although cooler to look at, are not always better than their iterative counterparts. And now, after 4 years, as i make the same programs, in a language that is remarkably similar to C, i felt all that. The same childish excitement. And instantly i knew why was here.
I read the story about a millionaire from Texas who lost his fortune in gambling two times. But he made all the money back again. Simply because he loved doing what he did.
Now i am not implying that i will make millions by coding. I am just an average programmer. I have seen people far far better than me. The kind of people who create magic with the code they write and become millionaires. If I ever want to become rich and successful in life, I WILL have to evolve. Maybe that's why i will do an MBA. But that's not the point. The point is, that at least till that happens, i will be satisfied. I will have the satisfaction of knowing that i am not wasting my time. I am doing what i love doing. Even if i don't get the kind of work i want, i'll still manage to do allright, because underneath everything lies the fact that i love programming. I might not be exceptional at it, but i sure do love it. And if i manage to get the thrill of programming from time to time, even if the work i am doing is "Support and Maintenance", i'll be happy. And that's good enough for me.


please excuse me if you find this a little touchy-feely. What can i say, it's raining outside. :)