Growing up on a farm taught me a lot about life. When I was a child, I remember waking up during the 6am hour to do my chores before I left for school. There were also many summers in the early June heat when even us kids would go out and move hay bales into piles for my Dad to load into our pickup. And then there was the garden. Did you know that children are great at weeding? My parents thought so.
Did waking up early to do chores, dragging hay bales in the blistering heat, and plucking out pesky weeds in the garden suck? Yes. Were these things boring at times? Yes. At the time, I wasn’t so happy about it, but looking back now, would I rather have had it easier? Nope.
My parents knew what they were doing (Thank you, Mom and Dad!). They instilled in me an understanding of persevering in working hard to reap something good. When I was child, I was able to reap the joys of having animal companions and the fruits of a tasty garden harvest. This experience taught me a life lesson. I learned that if you want reap good “crops,” it takes time, cultivation, and hard work. I believe this concept applies in almost all areas of life, but especially with learning.
I decided to start dabbling with Javascript in early 2018 to meet a need at the SaaS company I was working for. It was through that experience that I discovered my joy for coding. There were many hours spent in the gaining of knowledge and in the cultivation of my code. In the end, I was able to reap the harvest of a useful program, but more than that, I discovered the euphoria of creative expression that came when I coded.
For me, part of the joy of software engineering is not only the creating of something functional that meets a need but also the creative expression of coding. I had known this creative euphoria in the past when I created songs on musical instruments, but my mind was blown when I realized the joy I had in the creative expression I felt when coding.
My hope for this blog is to help you realize the same joys that I have. I want to plant ideas in you about coding so that you can cultivate them and reap a good harvest too. May this blog help you in your journey to growing into a coder yourself. -Jeremiah