> The more and more I code the more I see it closer to something like music than something like engineering. For many years I've also made the comparison betwe

> The more and more I code the more I see it closer to something like music than something like engineering. For many years I've also made the comparison between programming and music. You can learn the theory (CS or music) in school, but to be truly great as either a programmer or a musician takes passion, obsession, and dedication. I'd actually rank obsession as being the most important trait, as it can drive the other two. I'm not saying obsession is always healthy, but it's clearly a key driver in the skills of elite performers in many disciplines. I think the main reasons behind the similarities of the two is in ease of access and the rapid learning feedback loop. In both programming and music, you can buy enough gear for a few hundred bucks to experiment with your craft to your hearts content. In both, mistakes are cheap, if you play off key or write a bug you're not likely to damage anything in the real world and can get feedback to improve. In both, you can riff off the works of others easily to get inspiration and get up to speed with the latest developments. And feedback is fast, as your ear or your debugger will alert you to either successes or mistakes. The above qualities basically make a recipe for quick and unbounded learning, which leads to exponential development of skills. This is a recipe for not only quick learning, but the building of intense obsession in the right mind, as the rapid feedback system fuels the brain's dopamine reward system. It's no wonder when we see a young person who's exposed to programming with plenty of free time that we're often amazed at what they create. The same is true of music. A slight tangent, but my thoughts above are why I always ask people when/how they first learned to program during an interview. A new grad who's been obsessed with computers and coding since age 13 is going to run circles around someone who started in college because they thought it was kind of interesting and their friends told them how well pays. It's a simple question to ask, a nice ice breaker, and can provide a very useful signal for hiring if the interviewee exudes passion in telling you about their coding genesis story.