Pleasant article. It's easy to relate to the feeling of wonderment the non-programmers have, since, in a sense, on our first big project we're all non-programmers. I wish I could generate the amount of code I used to in those days.
The problem now isn't overcoming the language, or figuring out what to do, it's staying focused on what's really the same boring implementation you've been doing since the beginning. I know exactly what my next thousand lines of code are going to be. I just can't bring myself to sit down and type them out for hours on end.
<I know exactly what my next thousand lines of code are going to be. I just can't bring myself to sit down and type them out for hours on end.>
What are you writing in? I felt exactly the way you just described when I was doing a lot of CRUD in Java. If you are experiencing this coding malaise, the kind where you've done your thinking and you know exactly what your fingers are going to be tapping for the next 12 hours, your tools are truly letting you down.
Your tools are also putting you in danger, because somewhere out there, a competitor is using a better set of tools to finish the task in a tenth of the time and move on, with better motivation as well.
The problem now isn't overcoming the language, or figuring out what to do, it's staying focused on what's really the same boring implementation you've been doing since the beginning. I know exactly what my next thousand lines of code are going to be. I just can't bring myself to sit down and type them out for hours on end.