I very first got into programming by trying to fix a graphic adventure game that somehow was released with a pretty clear syntax error. This was back in the VIC-20 days. Really, for the first while it was about the games ... tweaking them, altering them, and later writing them.

The actual programming was always a means to that gaming end back then and not the end in itself. So in that sense I can completely relate to where you're coming from.

Over a couple years of that, it started to dawn on me that the programming itself had a power and interest all its own worth pursuing.

But I think if it was dropped in front of me as something I ought to do, no matter how dressed up in "fun" it was, it would have set off my non-conformist predispositions a little too much.