I remember early in my programming career, I had a program that was a tangled mess and making changes was requiring more and more effort just to keep everything

I remember early in my programming career, I had a program that was a tangled mess and making changes was requiring more and more effort just to keep everything straight. I was able to refactor the code into three well contained, clean modules. I distinctly remember the sense of satisfaction I got from that. I imagine it is similar to the satisfaction a wood worker gets when everything is just right. Not joy per se, but certainly a sense of satisfaction. Another programmer at work explained to a non-programmer why he liked programming by comparing it to cross word puzzles or sudoku. Again, it isn't that cross word puzzles are a joy so much as it is interesting and satisfying.