Well, this is also a terrible perspective. Programming can be like being a professional chef. There are some that become Gordon Ramsay's and others that get stuck in a greasy diner at a forgotten highway off-ramp.
Cooking professionally can be ugly, filthy, horrible hard work. There's the television version of the rich and famous cook and the reality of the actual work being really hard. And, yes, you have to do a lot of stuff you don't really enjoy doing. And, yes, it isn't all creative and wonderful.
Why am I making an analogy to cooking? Because over the last few years I've ended-up doing a lot of cooking for my family. I've studied some and really enjoy the creative process. However, I've also found myself completely and utterly fed-up with it at times. I used to be the designated cook when we went camping. The last time we went camping I drove out as far as necessary to go get take-out.
So,yes, programming, depending on the choices you make, can be like sausage making.
If you are the creative type you need to make an effort to find the right job for you or start your own business. Still, as someone else pointed out, you are going to have to stomach the idea that you are still going to have to do things that you will not enjoy. This is true of any job.
I always told my employees that I'd never ask them to do anything I was not willing to do myself (or hadn't done before myself). Examples of that were things like washing the pile of filthy coffee mugs in the kitchen area ('cause it seems that adults are pretty bad about cleaning after themselves sometimes) or getting in our Haas CNC machine to clean it. The point wasn't that I expected them to actively do these things but to realize that all of us ought to understand that there are things you don't enjoy doing that simply need to be done.
As a programmer you need to seek out work that really turns you on. How do you know? Because you can't stop thinking about it and you can't stop working on it. You want to talk about it all the time and you want to learn how to do it better. In other words, you are passionate about it.
In general terms there's a lot of mobility in the CS world. You need to take advantage of this and actively hunt for work that is really engages you while fully understanding that utopia does not exist.
Cooking professionally can be ugly, filthy, horrible hard work. There's the television version of the rich and famous cook and the reality of the actual work being really hard. And, yes, you have to do a lot of stuff you don't really enjoy doing. And, yes, it isn't all creative and wonderful.
Why am I making an analogy to cooking? Because over the last few years I've ended-up doing a lot of cooking for my family. I've studied some and really enjoy the creative process. However, I've also found myself completely and utterly fed-up with it at times. I used to be the designated cook when we went camping. The last time we went camping I drove out as far as necessary to go get take-out.
So,yes, programming, depending on the choices you make, can be like sausage making.
If you are the creative type you need to make an effort to find the right job for you or start your own business. Still, as someone else pointed out, you are going to have to stomach the idea that you are still going to have to do things that you will not enjoy. This is true of any job.
I always told my employees that I'd never ask them to do anything I was not willing to do myself (or hadn't done before myself). Examples of that were things like washing the pile of filthy coffee mugs in the kitchen area ('cause it seems that adults are pretty bad about cleaning after themselves sometimes) or getting in our Haas CNC machine to clean it. The point wasn't that I expected them to actively do these things but to realize that all of us ought to understand that there are things you don't enjoy doing that simply need to be done.
As a programmer you need to seek out work that really turns you on. How do you know? Because you can't stop thinking about it and you can't stop working on it. You want to talk about it all the time and you want to learn how to do it better. In other words, you are passionate about it.
In general terms there's a lot of mobility in the CS world. You need to take advantage of this and actively hunt for work that is really engages you while fully understanding that utopia does not exist.