The nature of joy in programming
Sharing a joke
One of the things that I’ve been interested in the latest days is what makes programming a joyful activity. What are the things that makes programming a joyful activity for me? Of course, begin able to understand another layer of contemporary society and begin able to automate boring tasks are already good reasons to like programming. However, those don’t explain joyfulness. This can only makes a person happy for not having to do the undesirable task anymore, but not to experience joy while coding the automation.
One of the layers of programming joy appeared for when I was working on a joke website for the end of the year ( https://new-year.felipebosi.com ). On the link you’ll see a simple website made with p5.js where fake fireworks appears with the word “Pow” in the middle of it. For the discussion here, what is important is that the joke worked with my friends and I enjoyed working on it because while I was working on it I was focused on how to make my friends like the final solution.
There are other aspects that made working on the new-year web site joyful. Like working on something that was challenging for me in a new way ( computer graphics uses a lot of math, specially geometry), creating art and being able to express myself. But lets tap more into the sharing part.
The joy of programming Easter eggs
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. Anyone that played video in the 90s or 2000s knows the Konami code. It was, and probably still is, one of the main codes to enable and run an Easter egg. Other famous way to hide Easter eggs is to hide them on the console or as comments on the source code, like the famous Amazon duck that meows:
On my website, I shared an open joke, but I also hid some jokes and Easter eggs on the browser console for other people to find. The idea of the Easter egg is to share something with only a group of people, sometimes hiding it behind a knowledge that only that group of people have, like the Konami code, or behind a tool, like the console, but sometimes even putting it at plain sight.
The joy here is doing something fun, sometimes silly or frivolous and share it with people that you think will like it while breaking the work rules. The dog’s ending in Silent Hill 2 breaks the game story in such a wild non nonsensical way that it makes the player laugh at least bit. It subverts the expected.
The same is true for the Amazon duck and my new-year website (although I wouldn’t call my site an Easter egg). You expect fireworks to make sound, not to see “Pow” written in your face. Amazon is a serious company, you don’t expect a joke coming from it, specially a duck meowing at you.
All of these jokes tells us that there is always space for fun and joy in life. That even when we aim for the best, for quality, or for being the biggest company, there is always time for joy.