Does programming make you happy?
draco: I had a number of other jobs before I got to programming in my thirties. The big difference is, you keep coming up against totally novel problems for which there are no ready-made solutions. It's very challenging, and it places programming as a job in a league of its own in terms of creative problem-solving. It doesn't make me happy, but it makes me look forward to my work every day, and that's saying a lot. It's also given me the liberty to change job and even business sector as often as I please (typically every couple of years) which again is unusual and refreshing.