Hi. My name is Ernie. I like to write software. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was 6 years old, when my folks got a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 from our local Radio Shack. I pored through books at my school library that had programs I could type in and run, and saved a bunch of them to tape (yes, tape) to mess with later.

I also really, really dislike busy work. The great thing about development is that rather than spending 10 minutes doing something really tedious and repetitive, I can spend 30 minutes making sure I never have to do it again, and the work involved in coding is guaranteed to be more mentally engaging.

To me, coding is an art form. That doesn’t mean that everything I’ve ever written is a work of art, but it does mean that coding is a creative process, and that code can be artistic. Here I am, sitting at a blank text editor, and I can create something useful, even beautiful, out of nothing but my ideas and time. I think too many folks take that part out of it, and instead code things that manage to result in lots of checked boxes on a list of features, but little real value to anyone.

So, anyway, that’s my point of view. What’s yours?