Why I find joy in programming even though I don’t get to code much these days

With the passing years in business (and it’s been almost 12 years since I started Nozbe!) I realize that one of the keys to a long term success is to keep finding these small moments of joy in your work… and recently I found it back in programming… back in tinkering with code… here’s why:

I miss coding… just like I miss building lego blocks…

I’m a self-taught programmer. I’m a geek. I managed to learn programming enough to be able to code the very first version of Nozbe which launched back in 2007.

Now I don’t code anymore, I hired programmers who are much better than me… so they won’t let me contribute to Nozbe code base… which makes sense - as the CEO of Nozbe I should be focused on leading the team, and not writing code.

But I still like coding… and I miss coding from time to time. To me, coding is like playing with Lego blocks - you put a few things together and suddenly they become a new thing. A new invention.

Just like I built a dice web app on my iPhone few years back

Recently I got to code again!

Yes, over the last few weeks for some internal purposes I had a chance of putting my skills into building some small HTML sites as well as JS and PHP scripts. It was so much fun! I got to play with all the technologies I used to be so familiar with.

And the best part, I got to do it all on both the iPhone and the new iPad Pro:

• using Textastic to code - this app is amazing!
• using Working Copy to push stuff to GitHub
• using Stack Overflow to find answers for questions - this is an amazing resource - I don’t know how I managed to build Nozbe back in the day without it… now life is so much easier.
• using Siri Shortcuts to build some additional scripts that help me get stuff done faster

What I really liked about these challenges is that they helped me think both as the CEO (thinking of processes we need to put into place) and as the programmer who’s tinkering with code… and when I didn’t know something, I could always ask my talented team for help.

Now I’m trying to teach my daughter to code :-)

On the weekends I spend coding in Swift Playgrounds with my 9-year old daughter. She loves the challenges and I love passing on to her my passion for building stuff using code.