Growing up, technology has always played a pretty big role in my life. While not as early as some, I had my first computer at 9 years old. Even though I was still a little too dumb to use it it was very fascinating. I mainly used it to listen to music. Then a few years later I got my very own desktop computer. After a while of spending time online and slowly getting drawn to the more nerdy parts of the internet I thought “hey, why not learn to program?”. Oh boy.
First on Windows, then later on Linux, I learnt python. I got very deep and then just got a little bored because I wasn’t making any interesting programs and then stopped. My interest for computing however, has not stopped. During the pandemic I spent a humongous amount of time on the computer fiddling with linux and fiddling with a bunch of different programming languages. It was always interesting but I never really felt accomplished.
Now a few years later, yes I would consider myself a poweruser and the time spent learning things like linux, shell scripting and latex has definitely paid off. However, when it comes to programming I’m still at a dead end. I know how to program things and it is fun trying to crack a problem but I don’t have any ideas on what to program. For the things I do, small shell scripts provide; and the usual mantra of “just solve problems you have with other peoples programs” doesn’t hold: I don’t have problems with software I use. I don’t have big ideas. So what’s the point?