Thank you for this. This is exactly how I feel about programming, and about love. I’m 21, finishing my fourth and final year of college, and have been programmi

Thank you for this. This is exactly how I feel about programming, and about love. I’m 21, finishing my fourth and final year of college, and have been programming since around 10 as well, so far as I can recall. When I started, it was just something I did because it was fun to make stuff—web pages, games, toy languages, that sort of thing. It wasn’t until probably 2006 that I realised how it had grown on me, so much that I really don’t want to imagine my life without it. Any skills or knowledge I have gained are owed to the obsession of one smitten. To quote Tim Minchin (If I Didn’t Have You): “If I may conjecture a further objection, love is nothing to do with destined perfection. The connection is strengthened, the affection simply grows over time, like a flower, or a mushroom, or a guinea pig, or a vine, or a sponge, or bigotry. Or a banana. And love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience and synergy, and symbiotic empathy. Or…something.” That about sums up my feeling on the matter.