<p>As a child, whenever I played video games, I would feel guilty because of all the time the programmers had to spend hammering out incredibly tedious code just so some kids could play a game and some Japanese businessmen could make money. Now, I, somehow, have become the suffer-er. There is nothing less fun. Nothing.</p>
<p>Why would you pursue it if even as a child you felt sorry for those who wrote the code?</p>
<p>I don't want to program for the rest of my life, but being able to solve a problem in my high school CS classes was just so exciting, especially since I'm the one who solves all my classmates' problems (I'm actually a below average programmer so don't misinterpret my message).</p>
<p>I am a self-taught amateur programmer.</p>
<p>I was debugging some autopilot code last night for two hours, trying to figure out why my floating point coprocessor was spitting out imaginary numbers.</p>
<p>Turns out I used forward-slash instead of backslash.</p>
<p>I also had another problem which took three days to figure out - a portion of my GPS receiver coordinate data was given as 485, when it should have been 0485. The data was a mile off in Google Earth before I realized this.</p>
<p>Solving problems can be fun at times, and at other times just incredibly frustrating staring mindlessly at variable values trying to figure out what tiny error causes the entire thing to go haywire.</p>
<p>And that's one reason why I decided to become an engineer, not a programmer.</p>
<p>solving a problem and writing a program can be fun...debugging isn't</p>
<p>Unfortunately, debugging is a necessary process to problem-solving, unless you can get it right on the first try each time. </p>
<p>BTW, colleges should make learning a programming language on par with learning a foreign language, then I can drop spanish! :p</p>
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Why would you pursue it if even as a child you felt sorry for those who wrote the code?
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<p>Perhaps it's for a required course? Engineering majors in most schools have to take some sort of intro programming course. If the OP is a CS major, then I'm confused just like you.</p>
<p>Programming is fun for some people. Heck, some days I've literally pulled an all-nighter debugging code and I'd describe it as way more fun than studying for a test or learning some new math technique. </p>
<p>You just have to have the right mentality, and programming is a blast.</p>
<p>skatj, that's the one thing I truly despise about programming; errors like that backslash one.</p>
<p>Anyway, what do you mean when you say - "And that's one reason why I decided to become an engineer, not a programmer." Did you go in for Computer Engineering ? Or just Engineering in general?</p>
<p>"Heck, some days I've literally pulled an all-nighter debugging code and I'd describe it as way more fun than studying for a test or learning some new math technique."</p>
<p>wow.</p>
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Did you go in for Computer Engineering ? Or just Engineering in general?
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<p>My interest is in robotics, so I'm going in mechanical engineering. I plan to still study some computer science, just not all out.</p>
<p>I totally feel your pain. I go into college w/o any programming background. Since the first programming class. I would have gotten really screwed if not because of my crazy programmer roommate's help.</p>
<p>skatj, I'm pretty much in the same boat as you then. But I've already sent in all my applications, and applied for Computer Engineering everywhere. What do you suggest I do ...?</p>
<p>I dunno, I'm still a junior. Are you locked into those majors? It depends a lot on which specific schools, but if you wanted to switch to mechanical engineering, and you got accepted for computer engineering, it might not be that hard to switch. (Of course, I am largely ignorant of what happens when you actually get into college, so take anything I say with a grain of salt).</p>
<p>Other schools however, such as Cal Poly SLO, I heard are pretty hard to switch out of your declared major, because they admit applicants based on major.</p>
<p>(Btw, I think computer engineering is more like electrical engineering than computer science, it's more about building the actual computer than programming it, but you'll need to know both).</p>
<p>I guess there's really no way to tell untill I start off with my CE courses ... Thanks anyway ..</p>
<p>Well in both Electrical and Computer Engineering, you'll be doing programming; C++, C, and Assembly are three big ones, and possibly VHDL. You definitely have to be able to at least cope with doing those in classes, if you're interested in the program. However, you won't necessarily be coding in your post-undergraduate life, so don't sweat it. And also, many of my friends changed their minds about programming once they actually started doing it in college, so you may change your mind as well.</p>
<p>If you are adamant that you HATE programming and aren't able to handle a couple to a few courses in it, you might want to look at other majors.</p>
<p>"some Japanese businessmen could make money"
That made me lol</p>
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As a child, whenever I played video games, I would feel guilty because of all the time the programmers had to spend hammering out incredibly tedious code just so some kids could play a game and some Japanese businessmen could make money.
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<p>Heh. It might not have been true when you were a kid, but these days game developers get to work on some of the more interesting problems in CS (e.g. in the computer graphics field).</p>
<p>Sometimes the problem you are working on can make all the difference. I didn't like programming at first. Then I started applying it to interesting problems, and reasonably enjoying it. Now I'm a software engineer.</p>
<p>Whether CompE is more like CS or EE will depend on the school. The lines are very fuzzy.</p>
<p>programming is not fun for beginners.but you may love it later</p>
<p>game programming is actually very fun. And depending on which section you're working on, you might not even have to do tedious programming. Game design, 3-d drawings and all those stuff with the tools nowadays, are not very hard / tedious to many people. </p>
<p>There are tons of other more tedious programming you'll encounter, not just games. But engineering & computer science are not just about programming. People take beginning programming courses and say "I hate programming" then decided not to follow those majors.</p>