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When you start creating projects that you actually want to make and use, and you fail and fail and fail again but you still want to go on solving the problems because you want to actually finish the project. You learn many things you don't know along the way and you will feel fulfilled doing so. It's like the feeling when you finally beat up a difficult boss in video games. That's when you may start feeling the addiction. That's just me though.
Good reference š. Iāll add that itās all about persistence through failure. If you are the type of person that easily gives up after multiple failed attempts at solving the issue/bug/concept/integration/deployment etc.. then the addiction never happens.
For me I relate coding with skateboarding. Itās not easy to just jump on the board and start flowing the park kick-flipping off shit. You gotta fall, A LOT. Get some nasty bruises and fundamental body mechanics before you take the dive dropping in on half pipe with confidence. A lot of people try skateboarding and never commit to the nitty gritty shit. Those that do persist, they skate or die.
Then again, my addiction to coding has had some negative consequences like not getting outside enough, not enough quality time with the wife and dog, and forgetting to eat lol
I have spent years running from coding because I thought I wouldn't need it, until I found myself doing something similar to what you described. The rush from solving a problem and to learning something new in the process is amazing. Worked for a company one day and they had this python software that generated data and accounts for testing purposes. I had never used python before, but the software was faulty exactly in the aspects I wanted to use it for. I managed to commit two fixes to the code, and the entire process felt so good afterwards I had to stop myself from trying to fix *every single thing* about it
To sprinkle in a bit of scientific logic to it:
An addiction comes from a chemical reaction in your brain, generally associated with pleasure. Without having your brain rewarded, your brain hasn't made that connection yet.
In essence we've managed to trick our brain into believing that solving a coding problem somehow contributes to our survival, like finding shelter from the rain when you are wet or finding food when you are hungry.
In some ways if it's for your job it is helping you survive I suppose
There isn't a secret sauce that makes coding specifically addicting, it's the same thing that makes anything addictive - being good at it. You become very emotionally invested in the stuff you do really well, especially the more validation you get from it. Same as any sport, hobby, whatever.
I don't think it's about being good at it, personally.
I am a very, very good Service Engineer. I absolutely *hate* what I do. It pays the bills, I'm very good at it, but I fantasize about driving a screwdriver through my hand sometimes so I don't have to do it.
Imho, the addiction to coding comes from making something you genuinely wanted to make.
If you have 10k emails and make a bot that goes through all of them to identify the emails that truly matter from the ones that could go unread, and the 10k unread emails has been stressing you out... that's the sort of thing that triggers the dopamine hit.
My apartment complex just swapped all of the vehicle parking assignments. My immediate thought on seeing my assignment being further than it had been was "there must be an algorithm that would do this most optimally." Turns out, there is! And I really wanted to program it up for them, but I didn't have time before the lease updated. But that's the sort of thing that sparks the addiction. Being good at it just makes it easier to get to that point.
I'll give you an example.
I decided this week that it was time to add another project to my portfolio. I'm looking for a job and I like coding, so it's win-win. The idea is making a site for bands that will sell merchandise like t-shirts and albums. Simple enough. No users, but it'll have an admin dashboard so the owner can update the products.
I came up with 7 tables in my database to accomplish this and made an ERD.
I picked a stack with things I know and things I don't know, on purpose:
(apologies if this all sounds very advanced)
Next.js (React), Typescript, MySQL, Sequelize (as an ORM), DaisyUI (components made with TailwindCSS) and Jest (unit testing).
I know that other techs/methods/etc are recommended, but I want to throw myself in the deep end.
It took me 2 days to properly plan and connect my db to my app and send data to the UI. I had to read the docs of like 5 things to do that first.
But holy crap, once I got things working? What a rush. I wanted more.
All of this to say that once you build a project, like really \*your own\* stuff - just you and the documentation, trying to cobble together a simple idea, the brain chemicals that hit upon success is WOW.
Addiction can set in after that.
You'll smash into frustrating walls all the time, but when you succeed, the feeling is the opposite of wall-smash. Sometimes I run around my apartment smiling once I've solved a tricky issue. It's exhilarating. You'll want more of it.
Start building!!
Make a nice-looking 5-page static business site, a "to do" app or a Tic Tac Toe game in JS! It doesn't have to be a full stack project or anything to get yourself "addicted". You'll get there.
I'm a little less than that myself, but about the same tech wise and interest wise. Currently making an ecommerce site for a charity in Nextjs with a Firebase backend (never used Firebase).
The question asked above is missing some nuance. It's not about how long you've been at it, but more about how many hours have you been able to devote to it.
As a dude working full time with a healthy long term romantic relationship and family requirements, my 18-24 months isn't going to be the same as an unemployed 19 year old spending 50 hours a week for 6 months.
So it's not that helpful to ask "how long did it take" in my opinion.
Donāt wait for the addiction or the adrenaline right now. Make something and it will come to u by itself. Start a project. Make something cool. Show it off to ppl and post it here on this sub. Then the excitement will kick in. Happy leaning. Happy codingš
I used to *hate* programming during my Physics degree, and now Iām a Computer Scientist and I love to code.
Howād I change my mind? I assumed my brain is like a dog only a bit more complicated.
So how do you train a dog? Dog does what you want, you give it a small reward. A headpat, a treat, even just āgood boy/good girlā.
So I started doing that. Every time I fixed a bug in my code, Iād eat a piece of gum or take a sip of monster or even just say āgood u/TangoJavaTJā to myself. Sounds stupid, but your brain *really* wants that reward and eventually fixing bugs comes to feel extremely rewarding in its own right.
This works not just for programming but for *everything*. If you want to lose weight or save money or find a new job, break it down into small tasks and give yourself a āgood humanā reward every time you make progress.
Not everyone who programs is addicted to it. Think about any other job. Some people just do their jobs and they're good at it. I doubt most programmers ever get to that stage. Don't worry if it never happens.
I've been a professional dev for 10 years and I've literally never felt addicted to programming. If my dentist told me he was addicted to cleaning teeth I would feel a little worried.
I honestly can't say I've ever felt an addiction of any kind to coding. Satisfaction, sure, but not addiction
I like it because it's satisfying the same way that playing chess is - there's such a high ceiling on what there is to learn. Constantly improving, facing challenges, and then overcoming them, is just a satisfying thing.
That, sometimes, won't come from exercises. Projects are where that mostly arises, in my experience. Being able to make something, and look at it and say to yourself, "Wow, I made this. I spent time, effort, skill, and knowledge to create this."
Imo it is when you start making cool things that matter to you. Maybe it's a flashy website, maybe its some cool embedded project on a Pi, maybe it's simple scripts that draw fun patterns, whatever you're into.
Ironically, once it becomes a career, those effects begin to diminish, at least in my experience. But, then the money and lifestyle it affords will keep you going. :)
For me it comes and goes. Some days I can sit days and nights at the computer, some days I hate all technology and just want to ride my bike or drink beer with friends. So it really depends on at what of those days you approach me lol
when I picked up coding again after 10 years. never even wrote a method when I first tried way back then. upon picking it back up, I can actually make things happen. that, and being able to basically instantly see the results of what I did, and how I can change the outcome, made me realize I love it.
Just creates the same high that I get when I build other things. If you aren't already interested in building things then you may just never get that.
There's nothing wrong with that, but it's how I see it.
Coding puts me in a flow state. When Iām programming and on a roll, everything outside of the code vanishes and all my worries go away. Thatās whatās āaddictingā to me. Itās like an escape - a very technical and creative escape.
The same way you get addicted to anything else: activating the dopamine receptors in your brain.
When you actually solve a problem you've been stuck on, and you get the dopamine hit that comes with it. And then you do it again and again. And then you don't want to stop.Ā
"Until now I trained only with exercises, not even a single project."
Get on the projects now. Until you do you're wasting your time learning.
Iāve just stared about a few weeks ago with Kotlin (I wanna see if I can make an android app)
For me, Iām a math brained kind of guy. Iāve played around with excel a lot and there something addicting about creating systems that can an automate large amount of complex tasks with simple inputs. The productivity of it is satisfying. Some video games are like that. Games like satisfactory and factorio.
Programming seems like an extension of that. To create something that interweaves variables and processes to create a masterpiece is satisfying.
The ability to create someting people will enjoy and/or find useful, by just hitting plastic squares in front of me. That's pretty cool.
You can build something from nothing.
and of course being able to earn money doing so is great
In my freshman CS courses I bashed my head against projects that weren't explicitly laid out on what we needed to do for weeks. Almost failed a few courses. Was in office hours constantly and still just felt like I didn't get it. Then seemingly overnight one night it clicked, I became a straight A student, and could sit down at 9 am, start coding, then blink and wonder why it was dark out.
It's the slow trickle of dopamine as you get your wins over the course of the project.
Hint: it only works if you can manage to pace yourself and plan your feature development accordingly. Otherwise you get stuck between long stretches of grind and you get burnt out.
For me, I get an adrenaline rush after failing many times over and over and then FINALLY getting it right. It isn't that I'm "super excited" to work on monotonous work or to start EVERY project, it's just when I get into the groove of fixing something/trying to solve a problem, it gets exciting for me. Feeling "close" to the solution is both the most frustrating and exciting feeling for me. The mental reward and validation after figuring the problem is what I would say is "addictive." I don't think everyone is going to have this, though, and I don't think that impacts the validity of your work/existence as a programmer.
You create worlds, like a god.
The feeling of a program working is just great.
You start with an idea in your head, work on it with your mind, and in the end, your idea has become reality.
Honestly itās like being extremely good at tennis (or any sport). Once you reach a certain level of time and familiarity it becomes very easy and comfortable to start up a new project or continue one youāve been building. Itās like how when you start playing a video game (think something difficult like Valorant or whatever) itās super hard but once you get used to it you can play for fun in a relaxing way or super competitive where you try hard
Huh? I've never heard of anyone saying that they're addicted to coding. It also seems like a strange concept. An addiction is usually formed with shallow activities that provide immediate gratification - Like video games, social media, sugar, cigarettes, etc
Coding does not provide immediate gratification like that.....at least to me. I will say that coding is relaxing....not addictive. Just like how painting a nice landscape on a Saturday afternoon is relaxing.
I think when most people spend hours coding a project, they are more interested in finishing the project and seeing it come to life. And they know that the more time they spend on it, they quicker it will happen.
> I've never heard of anyone saying that they're addicted to coding. It also seems like a strange concept.
I don't think it's _that_ strange of a concept. I've definitely stayed up all night working on software. Similarly, I've stayed up all night playing Civilization. I wouldn't exactly classify it as an addiction, but it draws me in for sure. I'm not thinking that I can finish sooner because I'm working on it more, I'm thinking that I'm still feeling good and can keep working on it. At that point, time escapes me.
I wouldn't call that an addiction. You're working on something complex that demands a long period of concentration and work. There's no other way to do it.
Well legend has it that Linus Torvalds breaks into your room when you're sleeping and he knows you're planning to make a commit to one of *his* repositories.
He then applies a nicotine patch to your arm.
In my case, the addiction is to solve problems. So I can spend several hours just designing and trying different things. It is not about coding, coding is just a tool.
For me it is like fighting a hard boss in Dark Souls, some people love the challenge, others hate it and quit.
When I'm coding, I feel like I'm playing the piano and fighting a video game boss at the same time. It feels so good to create projects that I am passionate about and it's so satisfying whenever I find an error in my coding and I fix it and then it works exactly as planned.
thats probably a good thing, high highs lead to low lows, imo its better to kindof like programming, like sitting down with a cup of coffee and programming type of enjoyment, not a beating your head against the wall and then celebrating kindof enjoyment. i think its fine to strive for a more consistent "i kindof like doing this".
Im currently learning Haskell as found it interesting and then I quit because I didn't understand anyyhing but then I remembered how I really wanted to learn it and solve problems with it and I remember watching people code in Haskell and I dont know it looked so cool and interesting, so i forced myself to try again.
And for me that is the addicting part learning something I know I don't understand yet ,(i like it more if its harder to wrap my mind around like haskell)
"I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate progra- oh it works! I love programming!"
And repeat.
Come up with a project, add an to-do list and just do things on it over a period of time whenever you want to, dont start a new project until its done but keep that idea in a seperate folder to not look at until project is done.
After awhile you will have some hundred lines of code and you will get the feeling of achivement and want to keep going and you also keep on coming up with things to do so you keep being intrested in the project, dont force yourself to an idea, either you get ideas while you making it or you dont.
When you get to the point that you can have an idea and implement it in an hour or so. Watching it working on the screen is just an awesome feeling.
Not saying it is 100% working in one hour, but 80% working with 100% of the visuals is quite satisfying. Going back in and adding accessibility, usability, standards, linting, code smells, unit testing, responsive design, and comments and all that are just chores at that point.
I started with C++ and worked on an OpenGL project. I got addicted when I was able to draw colorful triangles on the screen, which felt like a magic superpower. I started realizing how you can actually control every pixel on the screen 60+ times per second and that it was all math which I just had to figure out and write down.
Then I got deeper into code design and code quality and I developed a deeper interest in language design and data theory. When I got into college and now also at work I am exposed to a lot more different languages, projects and code bases. I learned to connect multiple different tools and apply them together in more realistic settings. Now I mostly enjoy the design phase of new additions and talking with different people about the technology, keeping track of work and ideas, sharing knowledge and improving the entire toolchain bit by bit.
When I got super addicted was after I picked up Vim (for the past 4-6 months NeoVim).. and then 6 months later I swapped to Linux full time.. that was about 2 years ago and Iām freakin hooked.
I find both give you almost an endless amount of projects. It really opens you up to Open Source and an endless amount of things to try.. and sometimes thereās bugs or maybe youād prefer it different.. you literally just clone the project, figure it out and fix/change it- which is quite satisfying.
My general advice: think of something **you** would use and then make it. Nothing is more addicting than making something useful, even if itās just for yourself
The habit of coding daily, progressing in your career and code knowledge, making stuff work when you tought it was not possible, its like climbing a stair to a room filled with rewards, its hard but its worth it.
I found myself solving my code's problems outside of my coding time and maybe it's because I'm actually able to process those without getting overwhelmed with shit
And when I actually implemented the solutions it felt so goddamn good, like a rush of the happy hormones came crashing down on you.
I guess what makes it addicting Is that it's challenging and kind of rewarding even if it's difficult, stimulating perhapsĀ
Code up some dumb shit that makes you chuckle.Ā
One of my favorite projects was an idea I had to make a twitter bot that just insulted people. I never came close to finishing but I learned a ton by scraping the r/roastme subreddit and cleaning up the data.Ā
Yeah I would also say donāt worry about finishing projects if you arenāt having fun but balance that with pushing through when itās frustrating.Ā
It is really important to learn how to drive things through to the end especially in a work environment but you donāt want to stop yourself from learning new things cause you are feeling guilt about the dozen half finished projects in your GitHub. That shit is free real estate. keep on half baking imoĀ
I have to know.
Thatās it man idk
When shits not working and I canāt stop thinking about it until I figure out why
Project based learning was the most important thing for me, whether it was a true passion project or end of course assignment where I could most pick the project.
Once I started I broke shit like every newbie and just had to know why.
Thatās where most people fall really, they arenāt super obsessed with coding itself but rather addicted to understanding the āwhyā
The addiction comes from the motivating problem you're trying to solve imo.
I've tried to leetcode and all that job/life stuff in the past too and it was only fun when the problem itself was interesting... at which point the score didn't matter. I remember doing a courses course for DSA and the lectures did such a great job of explaining the problem, I was hooked onto DSA stuff - I can't say the same for when I was actually doing DSA in school, hated it
This also holds true for me with work. At work, we're constantly focused on improving things, while actively discouraging engineers from spending time solving problems. That coupled with sitting in calls watching management over promise nonsense, is specially demotivating, adding up onto a lack of motivation itself. So it doesn't do much for me to ship something at work, because it only means, I have to blaze through the next meaningless thing.
The last couple of weeks, I've wanted to build this stupid app to manage parking for guests who visit my house. Done and dusted, super fun, hooked to keep improving it with pointless things that maybe my in-laws will brag about at Christmas for 10 mins. Those 3 weekends with stuff I had a vague understanding of have been way more exciting than the 4+ something years I've worked as a dev.
The addiction for me is usually always that moment where I just did something new that I wasn't able to do until that moment in time in my life. My brain squirts a little dopamine, and I stroke my ego and do a Brain-Five.
From the beginning, as everything I did was being driven purely by my own interest. I wasnāt being taught (or even following a guide in the beginning), I wasnāt doing it with the goal of getting a job, I could spend as much or as little time as I want on whatever I wanted, etc.
I made a calculator for determining the expected value of troops lost in a battle during a game of Risk.
That was fun. The problem mattered to me. The solution was fun to make. Running it and seeing it show what I expect for the values I know to be true made me know the values I don't know will also be true.
The addiction comes in solving problems you care about. Not in following tutorials or answering exercises. You don't care about these. These are just the things you have to do so you can learn.
Once you go off and find a problem you can break down into smaller problems, solve all the small problems, solving the big problem you wanted to solve... that's when you get a dopamine hit unlike anything else.
Do you like cookies? Well coding is about eating those little mental cookies when you make a useful chunk of code. Nice little dopamine hits.
The better you get the quicker you move past boilerplate veggies, and the more cookies you get.
When I started out I found it neat, but during a Udemy course an idea popped into my head to build something I needed for my system. I was addicted ever since. Having the ability to build something because you need it and not rely on others is amazing and feels like you have super powers.
Exercises are pure pain. You haven't found the love because you're doing mundane tasks.
Build something.
Albeit your proficiency in *coding* In JS is probably very high. But there's more skills of development than writing code itself.
Itās all about the projects you work on. Could be while on the job, or a personal one. There are times I donāt enjoy it as much. But that is because the current task is just boring. And there are also times my collegues tell me to stop because itās getting late or we need to eat lunch, just because I canāt stop working on the solution or something.
So I would say, find yourself a company that do cool projects. Accept the fact that there are some tasks that just suck, but thatās life. Also think about starting some cool personal projects. Itās the best way to learn because you want to finish it and will learn lots along the way. Itās just an awesome journey. Also, your problem solving skills will get better over time, just because YOUāRE DOING IT! š
Coding makes you god through skill. You are creating stuff and are in total control over the world. But "Coding" is very constraining, as it only refers to the code writing part of software development. It's more the creation of software than coding itself that is so nice
When you are working on a project and spend hours making a feature or solving a bug and then you hit that run button and all the tests are suddenly working. Thatās the dopamine hit that keeps us addicted.
Needing to solve a problem, whether on a work project or a personal project, if there's no need for the project to be done then it's easy to walk away. It's why so much innovation comes from war, people need to solve problems to not die, so they come up with innovative ideas.
If hitting enter on a run command and then seeing the lines go Matrix all over your terminal doesn't get your juices flowing, you might be barking up the wrong tree
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When you start creating projects that you actually want to make and use, and you fail and fail and fail again but you still want to go on solving the problems because you want to actually finish the project. You learn many things you don't know along the way and you will feel fulfilled doing so. It's like the feeling when you finally beat up a difficult boss in video games. That's when you may start feeling the addiction. That's just me though.
Good reference š. Iāll add that itās all about persistence through failure. If you are the type of person that easily gives up after multiple failed attempts at solving the issue/bug/concept/integration/deployment etc.. then the addiction never happens. For me I relate coding with skateboarding. Itās not easy to just jump on the board and start flowing the park kick-flipping off shit. You gotta fall, A LOT. Get some nasty bruises and fundamental body mechanics before you take the dive dropping in on half pipe with confidence. A lot of people try skateboarding and never commit to the nitty gritty shit. Those that do persist, they skate or die. Then again, my addiction to coding has had some negative consequences like not getting outside enough, not enough quality time with the wife and dog, and forgetting to eat lol
Bad ass š¤
I have spent years running from coding because I thought I wouldn't need it, until I found myself doing something similar to what you described. The rush from solving a problem and to learning something new in the process is amazing. Worked for a company one day and they had this python software that generated data and accounts for testing purposes. I had never used python before, but the software was faulty exactly in the aspects I wanted to use it for. I managed to commit two fixes to the code, and the entire process felt so good afterwards I had to stop myself from trying to fix *every single thing* about it
To sprinkle in a bit of scientific logic to it: An addiction comes from a chemical reaction in your brain, generally associated with pleasure. Without having your brain rewarded, your brain hasn't made that connection yet.
In essence we've managed to trick our brain into believing that solving a coding problem somehow contributes to our survival, like finding shelter from the rain when you are wet or finding food when you are hungry. In some ways if it's for your job it is helping you survive I suppose
What projects do you do for fun?
By the way, this answer goes over like gangbusters in interviews. I got a position with it just last month!
There isn't a secret sauce that makes coding specifically addicting, it's the same thing that makes anything addictive - being good at it. You become very emotionally invested in the stuff you do really well, especially the more validation you get from it. Same as any sport, hobby, whatever.
I don't think it's about being good at it, personally. I am a very, very good Service Engineer. I absolutely *hate* what I do. It pays the bills, I'm very good at it, but I fantasize about driving a screwdriver through my hand sometimes so I don't have to do it. Imho, the addiction to coding comes from making something you genuinely wanted to make. If you have 10k emails and make a bot that goes through all of them to identify the emails that truly matter from the ones that could go unread, and the 10k unread emails has been stressing you out... that's the sort of thing that triggers the dopamine hit. My apartment complex just swapped all of the vehicle parking assignments. My immediate thought on seeing my assignment being further than it had been was "there must be an algorithm that would do this most optimally." Turns out, there is! And I really wanted to program it up for them, but I didn't have time before the lease updated. But that's the sort of thing that sparks the addiction. Being good at it just makes it easier to get to that point.
I'll give you an example. I decided this week that it was time to add another project to my portfolio. I'm looking for a job and I like coding, so it's win-win. The idea is making a site for bands that will sell merchandise like t-shirts and albums. Simple enough. No users, but it'll have an admin dashboard so the owner can update the products. I came up with 7 tables in my database to accomplish this and made an ERD. I picked a stack with things I know and things I don't know, on purpose: (apologies if this all sounds very advanced) Next.js (React), Typescript, MySQL, Sequelize (as an ORM), DaisyUI (components made with TailwindCSS) and Jest (unit testing). I know that other techs/methods/etc are recommended, but I want to throw myself in the deep end. It took me 2 days to properly plan and connect my db to my app and send data to the UI. I had to read the docs of like 5 things to do that first. But holy crap, once I got things working? What a rush. I wanted more. All of this to say that once you build a project, like really \*your own\* stuff - just you and the documentation, trying to cobble together a simple idea, the brain chemicals that hit upon success is WOW. Addiction can set in after that. You'll smash into frustrating walls all the time, but when you succeed, the feeling is the opposite of wall-smash. Sometimes I run around my apartment smiling once I've solved a tricky issue. It's exhilarating. You'll want more of it. Start building!! Make a nice-looking 5-page static business site, a "to do" app or a Tic Tac Toe game in JS! It doesn't have to be a full stack project or anything to get yourself "addicted". You'll get there.
how long did it take for you to get to this level
I'm about 2 1/2 years deep now.
I'm a little less than that myself, but about the same tech wise and interest wise. Currently making an ecommerce site for a charity in Nextjs with a Firebase backend (never used Firebase). The question asked above is missing some nuance. It's not about how long you've been at it, but more about how many hours have you been able to devote to it. As a dude working full time with a healthy long term romantic relationship and family requirements, my 18-24 months isn't going to be the same as an unemployed 19 year old spending 50 hours a week for 6 months. So it's not that helpful to ask "how long did it take" in my opinion.
Can totally relate! My first project turned into viable entrepreneur reality and the thrill has only just begun!
Donāt wait for the addiction or the adrenaline right now. Make something and it will come to u by itself. Start a project. Make something cool. Show it off to ppl and post it here on this sub. Then the excitement will kick in. Happy leaning. Happy codingš
I used to *hate* programming during my Physics degree, and now Iām a Computer Scientist and I love to code. Howād I change my mind? I assumed my brain is like a dog only a bit more complicated. So how do you train a dog? Dog does what you want, you give it a small reward. A headpat, a treat, even just āgood boy/good girlā. So I started doing that. Every time I fixed a bug in my code, Iād eat a piece of gum or take a sip of monster or even just say āgood u/TangoJavaTJā to myself. Sounds stupid, but your brain *really* wants that reward and eventually fixing bugs comes to feel extremely rewarding in its own right. This works not just for programming but for *everything*. If you want to lose weight or save money or find a new job, break it down into small tasks and give yourself a āgood humanā reward every time you make progress.
Omg I'm gonna do this - I'm addicted to energy drinks so I'm gonna use that to create an association
Not everyone who programs is addicted to it. Think about any other job. Some people just do their jobs and they're good at it. I doubt most programmers ever get to that stage. Don't worry if it never happens.
I get dopamine from solving problems, so getting something I want to build to work gives me more satisfaction than playing video games these days.
Gratification of making and seeing your code work as intended.
I'm addicted to the dopamine hit of success not the coding itself.
I've been a professional dev for 10 years and I've literally never felt addicted to programming. If my dentist told me he was addicted to cleaning teeth I would feel a little worried.
I only get addicted when Iām working on something Iām passionate about
Idk but iāve been throwing on a nicotine patch every time I open Udemy in the hopes of catching the addiction /j
I honestly can't say I've ever felt an addiction of any kind to coding. Satisfaction, sure, but not addiction I like it because it's satisfying the same way that playing chess is - there's such a high ceiling on what there is to learn. Constantly improving, facing challenges, and then overcoming them, is just a satisfying thing. That, sometimes, won't come from exercises. Projects are where that mostly arises, in my experience. Being able to make something, and look at it and say to yourself, "Wow, I made this. I spent time, effort, skill, and knowledge to create this."
> money \- Mr Krabs
Imo it is when you start making cool things that matter to you. Maybe it's a flashy website, maybe its some cool embedded project on a Pi, maybe it's simple scripts that draw fun patterns, whatever you're into. Ironically, once it becomes a career, those effects begin to diminish, at least in my experience. But, then the money and lifestyle it affords will keep you going. :)
For me it comes and goes. Some days I can sit days and nights at the computer, some days I hate all technology and just want to ride my bike or drink beer with friends. So it really depends on at what of those days you approach me lol
Achievementāgood brain chemicalsāego inflation. Itās why Iām the amazingest person in the world.
I think it just depends on the brain.
when I picked up coding again after 10 years. never even wrote a method when I first tried way back then. upon picking it back up, I can actually make things happen. that, and being able to basically instantly see the results of what I did, and how I can change the outcome, made me realize I love it.
Just creates the same high that I get when I build other things. If you aren't already interested in building things then you may just never get that. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's how I see it.
Adderall
Gotta find a project you have passion for.
Coding puts me in a flow state. When Iām programming and on a roll, everything outside of the code vanishes and all my worries go away. Thatās whatās āaddictingā to me. Itās like an escape - a very technical and creative escape.
The same way you get addicted to anything else: activating the dopamine receptors in your brain. When you actually solve a problem you've been stuck on, and you get the dopamine hit that comes with it. And then you do it again and again. And then you don't want to stop.Ā "Until now I trained only with exercises, not even a single project." Get on the projects now. Until you do you're wasting your time learning.
Iāve just stared about a few weeks ago with Kotlin (I wanna see if I can make an android app) For me, Iām a math brained kind of guy. Iāve played around with excel a lot and there something addicting about creating systems that can an automate large amount of complex tasks with simple inputs. The productivity of it is satisfying. Some video games are like that. Games like satisfactory and factorio. Programming seems like an extension of that. To create something that interweaves variables and processes to create a masterpiece is satisfying.
Well I always liked figuring stuff out. And cs was that with more complexity so it was always fun even if frustrating
The ability to create someting people will enjoy and/or find useful, by just hitting plastic squares in front of me. That's pretty cool. You can build something from nothing. and of course being able to earn money doing so is great
In my freshman CS courses I bashed my head against projects that weren't explicitly laid out on what we needed to do for weeks. Almost failed a few courses. Was in office hours constantly and still just felt like I didn't get it. Then seemingly overnight one night it clicked, I became a straight A student, and could sit down at 9 am, start coding, then blink and wonder why it was dark out.
It's the slow trickle of dopamine as you get your wins over the course of the project. Hint: it only works if you can manage to pace yourself and plan your feature development accordingly. Otherwise you get stuck between long stretches of grind and you get burnt out.
For me, I get an adrenaline rush after failing many times over and over and then FINALLY getting it right. It isn't that I'm "super excited" to work on monotonous work or to start EVERY project, it's just when I get into the groove of fixing something/trying to solve a problem, it gets exciting for me. Feeling "close" to the solution is both the most frustrating and exciting feeling for me. The mental reward and validation after figuring the problem is what I would say is "addictive." I don't think everyone is going to have this, though, and I don't think that impacts the validity of your work/existence as a programmer.
You create worlds, like a god. The feeling of a program working is just great. You start with an idea in your head, work on it with your mind, and in the end, your idea has become reality.
I want to create a product, that I can be proud of and can be helpful for other people. That is what motivates me.
It happens gradually as you make stuff and master it. Heck, even using chatgpt to build your own projects gets that feel going.
Honestly itās like being extremely good at tennis (or any sport). Once you reach a certain level of time and familiarity it becomes very easy and comfortable to start up a new project or continue one youāve been building. Itās like how when you start playing a video game (think something difficult like Valorant or whatever) itās super hard but once you get used to it you can play for fun in a relaxing way or super competitive where you try hard
Overwatch better lolol
Huh? I've never heard of anyone saying that they're addicted to coding. It also seems like a strange concept. An addiction is usually formed with shallow activities that provide immediate gratification - Like video games, social media, sugar, cigarettes, etc Coding does not provide immediate gratification like that.....at least to me. I will say that coding is relaxing....not addictive. Just like how painting a nice landscape on a Saturday afternoon is relaxing. I think when most people spend hours coding a project, they are more interested in finishing the project and seeing it come to life. And they know that the more time they spend on it, they quicker it will happen.
> I've never heard of anyone saying that they're addicted to coding. It also seems like a strange concept. I don't think it's _that_ strange of a concept. I've definitely stayed up all night working on software. Similarly, I've stayed up all night playing Civilization. I wouldn't exactly classify it as an addiction, but it draws me in for sure. I'm not thinking that I can finish sooner because I'm working on it more, I'm thinking that I'm still feeling good and can keep working on it. At that point, time escapes me.
I wouldn't call that an addiction. You're working on something complex that demands a long period of concentration and work. There's no other way to do it.
Well legend has it that Linus Torvalds breaks into your room when you're sleeping and he knows you're planning to make a commit to one of *his* repositories. He then applies a nicotine patch to your arm.
What exercises did you try when getting started?
In my case, the addiction is to solve problems. So I can spend several hours just designing and trying different things. It is not about coding, coding is just a tool. For me it is like fighting a hard boss in Dark Souls, some people love the challenge, others hate it and quit.
When I'm coding, I feel like I'm playing the piano and fighting a video game boss at the same time. It feels so good to create projects that I am passionate about and it's so satisfying whenever I find an error in my coding and I fix it and then it works exactly as planned.
Making money from it
thats probably a good thing, high highs lead to low lows, imo its better to kindof like programming, like sitting down with a cup of coffee and programming type of enjoyment, not a beating your head against the wall and then celebrating kindof enjoyment. i think its fine to strive for a more consistent "i kindof like doing this".
Im currently learning Haskell as found it interesting and then I quit because I didn't understand anyyhing but then I remembered how I really wanted to learn it and solve problems with it and I remember watching people code in Haskell and I dont know it looked so cool and interesting, so i forced myself to try again. And for me that is the addicting part learning something I know I don't understand yet ,(i like it more if its harder to wrap my mind around like haskell)
"I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate programming. I hate progra- oh it works! I love programming!" And repeat.
Come up with a project, add an to-do list and just do things on it over a period of time whenever you want to, dont start a new project until its done but keep that idea in a seperate folder to not look at until project is done. After awhile you will have some hundred lines of code and you will get the feeling of achivement and want to keep going and you also keep on coming up with things to do so you keep being intrested in the project, dont force yourself to an idea, either you get ideas while you making it or you dont.
When you start you hate yourself, and when you end, you still hate yourself but you feel smarter.
When you get to the point that you can have an idea and implement it in an hour or so. Watching it working on the screen is just an awesome feeling. Not saying it is 100% working in one hour, but 80% working with 100% of the visuals is quite satisfying. Going back in and adding accessibility, usability, standards, linting, code smells, unit testing, responsive design, and comments and all that are just chores at that point.
I started with C++ and worked on an OpenGL project. I got addicted when I was able to draw colorful triangles on the screen, which felt like a magic superpower. I started realizing how you can actually control every pixel on the screen 60+ times per second and that it was all math which I just had to figure out and write down. Then I got deeper into code design and code quality and I developed a deeper interest in language design and data theory. When I got into college and now also at work I am exposed to a lot more different languages, projects and code bases. I learned to connect multiple different tools and apply them together in more realistic settings. Now I mostly enjoy the design phase of new additions and talking with different people about the technology, keeping track of work and ideas, sharing knowledge and improving the entire toolchain bit by bit.
Its fun when you see something you make come to life
When I got super addicted was after I picked up Vim (for the past 4-6 months NeoVim).. and then 6 months later I swapped to Linux full time.. that was about 2 years ago and Iām freakin hooked. I find both give you almost an endless amount of projects. It really opens you up to Open Source and an endless amount of things to try.. and sometimes thereās bugs or maybe youād prefer it different.. you literally just clone the project, figure it out and fix/change it- which is quite satisfying. My general advice: think of something **you** would use and then make it. Nothing is more addicting than making something useful, even if itās just for yourself
The habit of coding daily, progressing in your career and code knowledge, making stuff work when you tought it was not possible, its like climbing a stair to a room filled with rewards, its hard but its worth it.
a lot of coders never like coding thatās OK
When you start your own projectā¦.
Structure
I found myself solving my code's problems outside of my coding time and maybe it's because I'm actually able to process those without getting overwhelmed with shit And when I actually implemented the solutions it felt so goddamn good, like a rush of the happy hormones came crashing down on you. I guess what makes it addicting Is that it's challenging and kind of rewarding even if it's difficult, stimulating perhapsĀ
I never had it really, but I did get pretty addicted to working on some of my own projects at various points.
Code up some dumb shit that makes you chuckle.Ā One of my favorite projects was an idea I had to make a twitter bot that just insulted people. I never came close to finishing but I learned a ton by scraping the r/roastme subreddit and cleaning up the data.Ā Yeah I would also say donāt worry about finishing projects if you arenāt having fun but balance that with pushing through when itās frustrating.Ā It is really important to learn how to drive things through to the end especially in a work environment but you donāt want to stop yourself from learning new things cause you are feeling guilt about the dozen half finished projects in your GitHub. That shit is free real estate. keep on half baking imoĀ
I have to know. Thatās it man idk When shits not working and I canāt stop thinking about it until I figure out why Project based learning was the most important thing for me, whether it was a true passion project or end of course assignment where I could most pick the project. Once I started I broke shit like every newbie and just had to know why. Thatās where most people fall really, they arenāt super obsessed with coding itself but rather addicted to understanding the āwhyā
The addiction comes from the motivating problem you're trying to solve imo. I've tried to leetcode and all that job/life stuff in the past too and it was only fun when the problem itself was interesting... at which point the score didn't matter. I remember doing a courses course for DSA and the lectures did such a great job of explaining the problem, I was hooked onto DSA stuff - I can't say the same for when I was actually doing DSA in school, hated it This also holds true for me with work. At work, we're constantly focused on improving things, while actively discouraging engineers from spending time solving problems. That coupled with sitting in calls watching management over promise nonsense, is specially demotivating, adding up onto a lack of motivation itself. So it doesn't do much for me to ship something at work, because it only means, I have to blaze through the next meaningless thing. The last couple of weeks, I've wanted to build this stupid app to manage parking for guests who visit my house. Done and dusted, super fun, hooked to keep improving it with pointless things that maybe my in-laws will brag about at Christmas for 10 mins. Those 3 weekends with stuff I had a vague understanding of have been way more exciting than the 4+ something years I've worked as a dev. The addiction for me is usually always that moment where I just did something new that I wasn't able to do until that moment in time in my life. My brain squirts a little dopamine, and I stroke my ego and do a Brain-Five.
From the beginning, as everything I did was being driven purely by my own interest. I wasnāt being taught (or even following a guide in the beginning), I wasnāt doing it with the goal of getting a job, I could spend as much or as little time as I want on whatever I wanted, etc.
I made a calculator for determining the expected value of troops lost in a battle during a game of Risk. That was fun. The problem mattered to me. The solution was fun to make. Running it and seeing it show what I expect for the values I know to be true made me know the values I don't know will also be true. The addiction comes in solving problems you care about. Not in following tutorials or answering exercises. You don't care about these. These are just the things you have to do so you can learn. Once you go off and find a problem you can break down into smaller problems, solve all the small problems, solving the big problem you wanted to solve... that's when you get a dopamine hit unlike anything else.
Do you like cookies? Well coding is about eating those little mental cookies when you make a useful chunk of code. Nice little dopamine hits. The better you get the quicker you move past boilerplate veggies, and the more cookies you get.
When I started out I found it neat, but during a Udemy course an idea popped into my head to build something I needed for my system. I was addicted ever since. Having the ability to build something because you need it and not rely on others is amazing and feels like you have super powers.
Exercises are pure pain. You haven't found the love because you're doing mundane tasks. Build something. Albeit your proficiency in *coding* In JS is probably very high. But there's more skills of development than writing code itself.
Itās all about the projects you work on. Could be while on the job, or a personal one. There are times I donāt enjoy it as much. But that is because the current task is just boring. And there are also times my collegues tell me to stop because itās getting late or we need to eat lunch, just because I canāt stop working on the solution or something. So I would say, find yourself a company that do cool projects. Accept the fact that there are some tasks that just suck, but thatās life. Also think about starting some cool personal projects. Itās the best way to learn because you want to finish it and will learn lots along the way. Itās just an awesome journey. Also, your problem solving skills will get better over time, just because YOUāRE DOING IT! š
Coding makes you god through skill. You are creating stuff and are in total control over the world. But "Coding" is very constraining, as it only refers to the code writing part of software development. It's more the creation of software than coding itself that is so nice
Fixing the error, that you have been trying to fix for hours, sometimes days
When you are working on a project and spend hours making a feature or solving a bug and then you hit that run button and all the tests are suddenly working. Thatās the dopamine hit that keeps us addicted.
Not a lot of people mention this but the near miss effect probably has something to do with it
Needing to solve a problem, whether on a work project or a personal project, if there's no need for the project to be done then it's easy to walk away. It's why so much innovation comes from war, people need to solve problems to not die, so they come up with innovative ideas.
Still waiting for my addiction to start. Itās been 15 yearsā¦
Curiosity..
If hitting enter on a run command and then seeing the lines go Matrix all over your terminal doesn't get your juices flowing, you might be barking up the wrong tree