It's only a chore when you can't envision the end result when everything falls into place and everything just works with zero/minimal bugs and the program behaves just as you imagined. This is the payoff moment we all should anticipate when coding, not seeing it as a 'chore' but as a sort of delayed gratification exercise where we reap what we sow.
Not sure whether my experience is common…. But maybe if someone feels like programming is a chore most of the time it’s a strong signal that they need to change the job and/or profession?
I still enjoy it occasionally on my own terms, but writing the kind of code that people would pay me to write is mostly dreadful at this point. I’ve seen it all before and the problems aren’t interesting enough to keep me motivated.
Which is why I’m shifting into project management.
I still remember the excitement I felt in the beginning though, where every piece of code was a new adventure.
My point is, things change with time and experience.
For example, to start you spend 20m getting the local developer setup for that repo working because the docs are out of date, and then because the repo is rarely used another 45m updating node dependencies and wrangling webpack to satisfy new security warnings. Then 5 minutes of actual work: you add a new form field and update some CSS. Now wait 50 minutes for the CI to pass so you can merge your work.
No exaggeration -- these scenarios were common at my previous job.
Wouldn't that indicate a state of flow, meaning that you are in the 'zone'?