There are two things that I find myself doing that I think really illustrate how geeky I really am. The first is that I often find myself using a semicolon rather than a period to end a written sentence (semicolons are used at the end of most lines in many programming languages). The second is that I find myself writing a new application to “help myself think.” Where most people might go for a walk or read a book, I sit down and write a program. It helps me step away from whatever I’m doing and let problems solve themselves in my subconscious. Anyway, a few nights ago I really needed to step back from some of the projects I’m working on, so I wrote a Web-based chatroom. I haven’t really tested it much, and I know it’ll only work on more modern browsers, but I thought it might be fun to have others join me for a chat.
Take it from an old 27+ year programmer / analyst. This is normal.
Just take some time, and rely on the “back ground” processing inherent in every human brain.
I just loved writing new code. The subtle algorytham (still can’t spell that dang word), the new, all purpose object, the joy of a totally off the wall concept actually working (go figure).
When faced with a particularly difficult ‘challange’ (as management used to call them), I would find myself having the most complex of dreams, a nightmare that I enjoyed! I would actually dream of coding the “ULTIMATE PROGRAM”. Theory of everything kind of stuff (must be my Physics background). At the end, I would finally ‘get it’, and G-d would appear, in the form of Steven Hawkings, and his vo-coder would say, “Well done, my good and faithful son”.
It probably won’t be finished any time soon. It was mostly just something for me to play with when I needed a break from other projects. I do expect to pick it up again, though. I actually have a few interesting ideas for it. But it probably won’t be for a month or two at least.