I‘m sure many developers will agree with my answer.

I like that I can take a problem and come up with a solution just by giving instructions to the computer.

Photo by Negative Space

With any problem, there can be an infinite amount of solutions. Computers open up new doors to faster solutions to more complex problems. But you can’t utilize a computer without knowing how to interface with it. This is where coding comes in. Once you learn how to code, you have access to a powerful system for solving problems.

The learning never stops, either. There is always a new coding technique to learn that will help you solve even harder problems. There is always an existing solution that you can enhance. For those who like to learn, this makes coding a very attractive hobby.

One simple example might be that you have a small set of data and need to generate some sort of report on it. The data may look like this:

Day,       Sales
Sunday,    44
Monday,    66
Tuesday,   17
Wednesday, 61
Thursday,   4
Friday,    89
Saturday,  60

Off the top of my head, I am already thinking about all the different ways to store and display this data. I’m thinking about what methods could be utilized to collect this data for dates in the future, so that maybe we could build an automated system for tracking this information. Perhaps this information could be entered with an interface that stores it in a database and we can generate reports dynamically as the data changes.

If I didn’t have a computer to manage this data, perhaps all I could do would be draw a simple graph once on paper and have to re-draw on new paper when new data arrives.

If I had a computer but no coding skills, I could import this data into Excel and insert a chart based on the data, but it would still be a static report.

But coding allows us to create systems for inputting this data and generating reports on the fly. If I had an API to pull this data, I could easily code up a chart in D3 like so:

With the chart coded up this way, it is very easy to import and manipulate the data. The endless possibilities are what is excites me about coding.