Why are you a programmer?

I GOOD programer must be able to accept the reality. "It does not work so something is wrong" Then look at the program in reverse. Programming can be taught but to be good at it requires an inborn ability to follow the machine code and seewhat is happening. I also believe good programers are born. It is an art. Anyone who says "My code is correct so it has to work" will never make it.

When there's a challenge, what feelings and sense of accomplishment comes after a solution has been provided by you or being part of the team that provides the solution.

This is a tough question to answer nowadays. 16 years ago when I graduated college, I was driven by the creative aspect of programming. I loved to accomplish something--it made me feel good to be able to create something that people found useful. Now I'm 16 years into my career and have my master's degree, am a software consultant for state government and have a cushy job, but I have lost something. There is no more fire to my work. I find myself taking too long to finish projects and having little to no interest in them. Maybe I have been in this field too long. Some days I just yearn for a job where I don't have to think anymore.

I am from the school of "How did they do that?". From doing graphics and games on a C64 and then discovering you can switch out the character set, I have been hooked on trying to see what you can do with code. Whenever I use a video editing program I think, I wish they had more special effects and better encoding...well, being a programmer means you can build your own.
Also, if you screw something up in programming, you learn immensely by just fixing (or re-doing) it.

It more than making a million in a night, the urge one get whenever one accomplishe a task working around the programming evniroment is so high and more valued than making a million a night