I am a programmer, ever since I wrote my first basic program on the Commodore 64 when I was 6 years old, I have loved to program. I do it at work, I do it at home, j have even spent the last 4 months trying to find a way to do it productively on the go(More on that soon). Over the years the type of programming I’ve done has changed, most recently I’ve been focused primarily on web-based projects. Last week I started a new project for a client, a simple desktop application for searching an online database we have developed for a client. It’s not a complicated app, just a simple search with a basic list of results, but I couldn’t stop working on it. It was great, over the course of a weekend I went from nothing to an application ready for testing and final tweaks.
It felt really good to sit down and just write an application that serves a purpose. It also reminded me how much I enjoy writing for the desktop, where you have so much more control than the web. It also brings back a discussion I often have at work when we sit down to plan a new project. Do we do it as a web application or a desktop app. For the most part a web app has been the answer. This time I wanted to add some security to the search without having to have the users login, and a desktop application let me do that easily. It also let me revisit some coding solutions I’ve used in other projects and refine them.
It comes down to something you find when ever you search about how to become a writer, ‘You need to write’. When I started my day job, it was mostly programming, but over the years it’s expanded to include a lot more. From customer support to graphic design and any thing else our clients need. This is one of the things I love about my work, there is always something new to learn and do. It also means that there are days where I don’t program. Or the only programing I do is bug fixes and cleaning up code. To sit down with a simple requirement and be able to just write it felt good. It’s also the driving force behind some of my side projects, that I’m struggling to get off the ground. Of course with us kicking off a big programming project on Monday, I might find my self sick of desktop programming by the end of the summer.
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