It's like if you had a passion for painting and got a job that consisted of 50% deciding what solid colour to paint walls and 50% painting walls solid colours.
This varies a lot. I could imagine a game dev whose hobby resembles their passion a lot more.
I also think that programming well is an art as much as it is science/engineering/math
Strong disagree - although it depends on how you define art
Is adding form to function artless? Is architecture artless?
If you use a highly choreographed engineered process for creating a piece of art - does that make the outcome artless? One way I categorise artists I have met is engineer-type artists versus discovery-type artists: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31981875
i also think art is defined by the perception of the viewer (and has far less to do with the creator than is usually presumed!)
Then you're obviously doing it wrong. Programming with passion, is an art unto itself.
For me the key is just having other hobbies. I do less of that (which is vaguely defined ops work + some programming) as hobby because I do it at work, but it's not like I lack other hobbies.
I usually go back to it when the job takes me away from it (say we're speccing project for the client or other non-work that is required to get work later down the line).
It's essentially sacrificing one hobby for another. Sure I no longer tinker with penguins all day but I can afford stuff for my other hobbies and still not hate my job.
Fast forward through a career of doing it, and I am sick of it. When I retire I want to de-tech my life as much as I can. I'll probably keep a smartphone but I don't think I'll have a computer in the house.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
> But I somehow always knew, if I had to do this 8 hours a day, for projects I am likely not intrinsically motivated to work on, I'd likely hate it after a few weeks
You just play with programming languages on the surface. Programming is something different and chances are you won't like it.
>I envy those which managed to make this passion into a paying job without loosing the love for it.
Why envy? Just find activity you love.
How come? You said you are a ‘polyglot’.
Human language polyglots are geniuses who know several languages on a decent level. If you checked several courses on Duolingo, chances are you are not one.
The same applies to programming languages.
Maybe, stop calling yourself a synonym of ‘genius’ to avoid receiving references to Dunning-Kruger effect.
>How come you are diagnosing overconfidence from afar, without knowing anything beyond the few lines I've written?
Few lines are enough to see inconsistencies in your words and realize that I was in your shoes.
The only difference is that as a script-kiddie “having dabbled in a two-digit amount of programming languages“ I decided to give it a try and shifted to programming in my career. It’s not what I thought it was, so I cleaned out my closet from amateurish illusions, focused on 2 languages and I’m quite satisfied with my job.