Lately I've been really enjoying programming quite a lot. It feels like the early days where it was all I did. Even if the frequency is not the same, I'm loving every minute of it. Especially since the last year or two I had fallen out of love with it. Mostly because it felt like the work was meaningless, among other reasons. There were just far too many things that were going wrong. Over the last few months I've been able to rebuild my confidence and enjoyment with programming. I'm just building things I'm curious about, and somehow streaming has helped with it. Of all the things, I can't believe streaming has had quite the positive impact on my day to day. It's helped me be consistent over the course of months when building projects. Even though most times it's just me working on something I find interesting. It sure feels good. I can't pinpoint any one thing that has led to this change of outlook, but I'd say there were more than a few.
It feels odd to say it, but what started it all off was writing a blog post a day. Even though most of them were not even about programming. Doing a little bit at a time has helped build consistency and change my focus towards doing a little bit everyday over big efforts over short periods of time. There are times when it's required, but in the long run it's the consistency that makes the difference.
It's not ideal yet and I could do a lot more and better than I am doing right now, but it's a lot better than what it was a year ago. The trajectory looks good, so I'm going to focus on the small improvements where I can find them. It works, so why ruin a winning formula?
What am I working on currently?
Currently on the stream I've been following Handmade Hero on Linux with Zig. I'm only at the end of week one, which admittedly took me about two weeks. It has been quite frustrating at times but also very rewarding. The great part is that it's leaking into aspects of my work. I'm able to carry a lot of the lessons learned over to work. Mostly the simplicity with which Casey Muratori programs. He breaks concepts down quite elegantly and I like his anti-pattern approach of programming. It's quite the breath of fresh air. Just building the thing you need and cleaning up a little bit along the way.