I was listening to The Pragmatic Engineer interview Casey Muratori about high-performance code, which I found really interesting. I’m actually considering going through his Performance Aware Programming series and (re)learning some assembly. I never thought I’d even consider doing that. I learned Assembly in high school and university, and I didn’t enjoy it.
Casey is a game programmer, and there was a question in the interview about how he uses AI tools in his work. “We are not using them” was not the answer I expected. Perhaps even more interesting was the rest of the answer. Casey loves programming and wants to enjoy what he does. He writes the code because he wants to do the work. If he didn’t, he’d license some game engine or technology, not spend time getting an AI to do the work.
It’s an interesting interview, but it made me wonder how many people out there enjoy their work. How many want to go to work and get things done? Certainly, people want to get paid, but I would hope a lot of you have a job you enjoy doing, and aren’t necessarily looking to get someone, or something, to do the work for you.
And how many go primarily because they have bills and need the paycheck? Would you rather be doing something else if you didn’t need the money?
I love solving problems with customers, testing technology, and puzzling over the approaches to take when confronted with a challenge. I enjoy going to work, and while the paycheck matters, I like doing the work. I have no interest in retiring from my current job, as it’s fun. It’s hard some days, but mostly it’s fun.
Do you still enjoy writing code? Or configuring and tuning servers? Or whatever you do? Are you looking forward to the day when you don’t have to do this job anymore?
I don’t expect many people to comment unless they enjoy their jobs, but if you do, let me know.
Steve Jones
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