Programming is a funny mix of deep pessimism and irrational optimism. After coding for a long time, you see two themes continuously and they train your behavio

Programming is a funny mix of deep pessimism and irrational optimism. After coding for a long time, you see two themes continuously and they train your behavior: 1. All kinds of things that you never considered go wrong all the time. This trains you to consider what could possibly go wrong in the long term deeper and ever deeper. I find this carries over into non-coding activities. 2. You are continuously faced with problems that seem completely unsolvable. And, you keep solving them day in and day out for decades. This trains you to be (perhaps rationally) optimistic about what can be done. Because every problem starts out devoid of clues and devoid of clear ways to get clues. No idea what's happening or even where to look. But, it always turns out to be something! It's never evil magic. You might be left with the mystery of "How did this ever work?" But, you solved it. You committed the 3-line patch that took 3 days to write. And, you'll move on to the next unsolvable problem right after lunch.