I would say that I still like to code, but I don't like it in the way that I used to. For the longest time my favorite movie was WarGames (and it's still on my list). That movie emphasized how cool and mysterious computers were at the time. Computers couldn't really do much back then, but that's what made them so accessible and fun. To program a computer, you had to understand computers. You had to know what was going on with bits and bytes and graphics adapters and protocols and whatnot, but those were all little things that you could grasp and play around with. But it created an intimacy between man and machine. Even high-level languages like BASIC felt rudimentary enough to represent the binary structure of a computer. These days everything is abstracted. Every abstraction is abstracted. These days you can go your entire career, for example, knowing nothing more than Javascript, CSS and HTML. Sure, there's lots more to learn, but you generally don't need to learn it unless you're the main developer on a large project. These days computers are complex, networks are complex. No one can possibly know more than a fraction of it. These days there isn't enough time to play around with everything to really understand it because there's so much to understand. I miss the simplicity of older times. It's like college. I loved college. It was so different from high school. I had more freedom. I discovered that there was so much more to this world than I had realized. College was very exciting...when I was 18. I've gone back to college a few times to take a course here and there. The magic isn't there anymore because I am a different person. It's disappointing, but it's okay because as a different person I understand more and I am a better student. So now I am a career developer. Now I face the challenge of professional growth. It isn't enough to track down a bug; I need to make my code as bug-free as possible with every single release. It isn't enough to deliver on a project; I need to make code as efficient and manageable as possible with every line I write. So I miss the simplicity and mystery of what computers used to be. But as computers have grown, so have I, and the challenges continue to present themselves. I definitely still enjoy that.

When I was a kid, I had a book with a BASIC program that generated mazes. I loved the game, but it was a mess of code. There were GOTOs that led straight to other GOTOs! (Check out line 780.) As an exercise when I got older, I went through and made it structured -- took days! That is why all the GOTO hate. Anyway, using a GOTO on occasion isn't such a big deal. The problem is when it is the backbone of a complex program. And I agree with the person who said very few programmers come across a situation in which GOTO would be the preferred method.

I agree completely. I miss how cool and relatively simple programming used to be. No it wasn't necessarily convenient, and there was less you could do, but with convenience and power has come insane levels of complexity. I have come to a realization that I simply don't love programming anymore. Even just trying to keep a career afloat now can be perplexing. C# is fine, but I also have to learn JavaScript and jQuery -- for now. But will I be out of work in 5 years if I don't learn Python...or Ruby on Rails...or what? So I feel your pain. Indeed, I feel it so much so I'm planning a career change in the next couple of years. I think I'll spend my spare time programming the stuff I want to program...see if I can find my lost love.