post script: What the hell does your comment code have against names longer than 20 characters?

Signed,
Kurtis Rainbolt-Greene

Back in the late 70’s or early 80’s, there was this one fad diet (I forget the name), where the idea is that you eat nothing but rice for two weeks straight. My mom commented, when she read about this diet, that at the end of the two weeks, you would either love rice, or hate rice, and there would be no doubt in your mind which it was, by the end of those two weeks. I always thing about that when someone asks me if programming is a good career or not. It really depends upon how much you love rice.

Which is why I recommend taking the course in programming. This is sort of like trying the rice-only diet for just a couple of days. If you find yourself liking it, then maybe going whole hog (or at least going a lot farther) is in order. On the other hand, if you find yourself growing tired of it, you can quit (or at least choose a different career) before it destroys your will to live.

On the up side, it pays well, they let you play with all sorts of cool toys and solve all sorts of interesting problems, and there is always something new to learn. And you do it sitting in a comfy chair in an air-conditioned office.

On the downside, you have the fact that Office Space was a documentary. Or almost as bad, you’ll find yourself middle aged, out of a job, and unemployable because you only know technologies that are 15 year obsolete and that no one uses anymore. And even if you avoid those pitfalls, you will end up spending days if not weeks tracking down obscure bugs in programs that damned well should work, all the while your boss throwing fits about missed deadlines and blown schedules. Oh, and there’s always some new technology or fad rocking the boat, and that the way you’re used to doing things, that was perfectly acceptable a year or ten years ago, isn’t how we’re doing things now. And you’ll have to learn everything all over again. Whether you want to or not.

If money is your object, and you don’t care if you hate your job and it’s destroying your soul, become an investment banker instead. They get paid lots more than programmers do.

Programming can really, really suck. Or it can really, really rock. My suggestion: try it. If you like it, welcome to the club. If you don’t, you’ve still learned something valuable.

Your post makes me wonder even more.. =/