Sip from the Firehose

For me, programming is fun.  It’s pure joy for me to create programs from nothing.  Even though our jobs are also work, there is also a lot of joy and fun in everything software engineers do.  For Embarcadero Technologies development is also serious business.  One of Embarcadero Technologies R&D’s principles of a winning engineering culture is "fun improves creativity, so have fun while you work."

Randy Pausch, Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who passed away in 2008, reminded us in his lectures, writings, and presentations to "enjoy every day and have fun with family and friends". In the Walt Disney 1937 animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White sings "Whistle while you work" while her "team of animals" helps clean the Dwarf’s house. Justin Etheredge in his "CodeThinked" blog said "if you aren’t having fun, then don’t do it".

Frederick P. Brooks Jr in his book, "The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering" answers the question "Why is programming fun?".  You’ll find an extract from his book that lists the five answers to the question at http://www.grok2.com/progfun.html.  From his list, my favorite answers are "the joy of always learning" and "the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people."

Here are a few ideas and links for having fun with programming:

• Read Marco Cantu’s "Fun Side of Delphi" articles and examples
• Teach kids how to program
• Learn the Programming FUNdamentals
• Read the 101 great computer programming quotes
• Write a program to find interesting digit patterns in Pi
• Create a neat programming trick
• Read "Best Programming Jokes" and tell some of them to your programmer friends
• Compose a computer programming song
• Read "Programming is Fun" and "Programming is not Fun" on c2.com

I’d love to hear your stories about fun programming.  What was your most fun project?  What do you do to have programming fun?

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