http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=351588

Fellow monks,

I’m working on a perl-project in close teamwork with a colleague. We’re students and doing this project for a company. I’m coding perl since maybe 3, 4 years, he’s just started (he’s more on the PHP-side of life).

before this project i never worked this close with anyone on a programming project, and if so, always with elderly, calm people. It seems to me, my colleague has a completely different attitude towards scripting and coding.

i do believe, coding means to work with problems all day. To try to solve problems. this means to me: if i do not like those problems, it’s not a good thing for me and the work i do.

he, on the other side, is often sitting next to me, cursing, getting agressive towards perl, his hardware, me and the world in general. As if the code he writes is infringing him personally. To me it looks as if he wanted to have solved every problem before it even occurs to him.

now:
  • what’s your attitude towards the code you write? Towards the problem that happen to cross your way?
  • how do you live with the feeling of having problems all day long and need to solve them? (otherwise you get fired or whatever)
  • how do you stop this ‚virus of the mind’ crawling around in your head after a day coding? How do you manage to not even get infected?
  • one day i read in a book, that if you're coding, you're never really sure, that the thing you do is really really right. often you know it should be that way but you can't be 100% sure (at least as long as you're not one of those gods floating around in the monastery). how do you live with that feeling?

    yes, i do believe coding puts a virus into your mind. And sometimes it takes good strategy to stop it from spreading around. But nevertheless i love perl, i love coding and i love the code i write. it's just the way you put it. guess i'm more a zen-minded guy... :)

    ze