I Just Want to Code

I have an angel and a devil sitting atop each shoulder. The angel says, "Just code for fun! What you make can be just for your enjoyment and that's --" the devil interjects, "not enough to get ahead, loser. If you're not coding your next startup then how're you gunna get rich? Coding for fun? Pfft, sounds like the fast lane to being poor." Since I was a kid I've always gravitated toward computers. First sucked in via computer games, then Lego NXT Robots, then turtles, then high school Java, and finally a college degree. It always starts off as some form of play, and before I know it I've learned something new. At 8 years old, I played Age of Empires III only to get suckered into learning how to fix the install on Windows. In 6th grade I built a Lego machine gun using the Lego NXT robotics and learned how to program using blocks. In 8th grade I used turtles to make cool designs. But I also grew up consuming hustle porn. I loved reading Wired and Entreprenuer magazine and dreamed of be ... Read full article.