Shelley Powers blogged a great post yesterday about her love of coding. It certainly reminded me of my own love of software creation – that exhilaration of turning an idea into a product or service.

When I think back to my childhood, I can see that I became addicted to that feeling very early in life. Shortly after receiving our first Atari computer – complete with tape drive – my brother and I used to create technology gadgets of the future out of paper, boxes and tape. From television watches to portable laptop printers – our juvenile creative output wasn’t too far off from what I see now everyday.

A few years later we’d spend hours each day typing in programs written in Basic, found in the latest issue of Nibble. In fact, I remember writing code in the back of my parent’s station wagon using paper and pen while on family vacation. I’d meticulously keep track of line numbers – waiting to get home so I could try running my latest ‘choose your own adventure’ game or home brew word processor.

I gained early exposure to the many phases of software development – tears fell when I once lost an entire essay in grade 7 because I chose to use my own word processor rather than the one that came with our Apple IIc. Turns out I had a bug with the save function – didn’t this thing pass QA? ;>

Today, as I’ve moved from one role to another in the software industry – one thing has certainly remained consistent – I love to build software, and I truly do love to create. Thanks to Shelley – today I’ve been once again reminded of the joy that comes with saying ‘I did this’.