I am programming since 1986. I have programmed in Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Logo, Forth, C, C++, Pascal, Lisp, Prolog, Java. I love programming. I don't know if I

I am programming since 1986. I have programmed in Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Logo, Forth, C, C++, Pascal, Lisp, Prolog, Java. I love programming. I don't know if I made it "big". What is big? None of the projects I have made in the past are still in use. Most have been forgotten. Some were forgotten even by me, although I was the only developer :) Software is a moving target. There is no making it big. Everything you do will get obsolete pretty soon. But this is good! That is exactly the point. Software is intended to be "soft" and changed whenever a change is needed. So, when programming you are competing with yourself and your abilities as of that moment in time. The only negative outcome is when you fail to make it at that time, so you fail the expectations you have from yourself. If you don't love programming and deeply understand that all software projects will be "failed ones", consider another approach. In programming you should not aim towards motivation from recognition by others, but from exceeding your expectations from your self. To a better job, always! Aim high, really high! Aim complex, really complex!