'''Programming''' can be a very frustrating thing to do at any level.

There are a few things that have kept me going:
   * Be excited when little things work
   * Realize that from little things big things are built
   * Everybody is still learning (even Knuth)
   * Focus on being the best programmer you can be, rather than as good as someone else
   * Realize that holy/language wars just bring upset and the best thing to do is to fix the problem than complain
   * Don't be intimidated by 500+ page books (almost everybody finds them frustrating)
   * Remember your past difficulties when helping new programmers 

Please extend this list.

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[MSW]: In fact I '''love''' 500+ pages technical books :)
   * Enjoy bugs. Remember, they are there to be fixed by you - be excited when you fix that thing.
   * Enjoy interaction with your users: They will show you ways to use your program you've never thought about before.
   * Expect credits for minimal, ridiculous changes you do, but don't for abstract flexible frameworks: You get cheered on for what they see.
   * The smile on the faces of your users when you implement their wishes quickly
   * Humor. You'll often laugh hard when you read code you wrote years ago - especially if you are now more fluent in that programming language
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''[DKF]'' - It's books that are over a thousand pages that are intimidating.  Especially when used on cow-orkers...  ;^)

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Keep it down to about 800 pages, like Eric Foster-Johnson's commendably unintimidating ''Graphical Applications with Tcl & Tk'', and you should be OK.

As for the "cow-orkers": I used to think the fad of omitting properly placed hyphens in words such as "co-workers" was harmless, but no more.

"I've had it with this company! He accused me of ''orking cows!'' I've never orked a cow in my life!"

"Oh yeah, tell me about it--you probably sneak out to the Cow Palace and ork cows all night long, or until they come home, whichever comes last!"

"Hey, stop that! Break it up! Somebody call the police, quick!" :o)

David McClamrock

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   * Sometimes failure isn't really failure.  When you '''learn''' from a project it can in a way be considered a success.

   * Keep reaching for the sky.  If you only do coding that is easy you won't make the gains that you may seek.

[[Economic absurdities ...]]

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The most dangerous moment is when you have a vision and say to yourself, "Hey, I could code that!"  The next thing you know, no one has seen you for a week and you've perpetrated yet another Tcl object system.  -- [WHD]

'''LOL!''' So true... so true ''--[ro]''

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Perhaps related to this are books like ''The Nudist on the Late Shift'' [http://www.pobronson.com/Nudist_Introduction.htm][http://www.topwritecorner.com/reviews/review5.html].

I seem to remember a book by Robert L. Glass called
''Hot Dogs and Mixed Nuts: Tales of the Computing Profession,''
but I cannot find any reference to it.
It must have been written in the late 70s.

David S. Cargo (dcargo@marix.com)