Foreword

We all code for different reasons.
People say, “Thanks to AI, we don’t need to code at all!”
Their reasons are different than mine.

Having a computer generate code for me
is like hiring a taxi to take me to the end
of what would have been a beautiful walk.
I’m not doing it to have it done!

A painter can buy cheap paintings to fill walls.
A carpenter can buy cheap furniture.
(“Computer, generate 100 love poems
and send them to my love.”)
It’s so laborious to do it yourself!
So why bother?

Because it’s beautiful.
We want to be someone that can make code
so worthy of admiration.
We are fans of beautiful code,
so we want to admire it ourselves,
and know we made that.
Our future self thanks our past self for code so well-made.
Our past self admires who we have become.

Ah, but we all code for different reasons.
Maybe this is only me.
But if the topic interests you, then Happy Code is for you.

— Derek Sivers, sive.rs