Why Do We Code?

“Learn to code” has become a mantra for the 21st century. From digital literacy initiatives, to boot camps, to innovations like the Raspberry Pi, we’re surrounded by platforms and systems that might be somebody’s first step towards becoming a professional developer. Tools that started out as a side project, in fields as diverse as finance, medicine, and cinema, are becoming successful applications in their own right - and the people who created those tools are realising that there can be a world of difference between writing code for a side project and managing a commercial software application.

One thing that all these scenarios have in common is motivation. What it is that inspires somebody to sit down, fire up a text editor, and start writing code? Motivation is why we started coding in the first place, and it’s why we sit down each day and start work – and understanding motivation can make a huge difference to what we do, how we do it – and how we feel when it’s done.

Join Dylan Beattie for an insightful look at the reasons why we write code - from neuropsychology to Newton’s Laws of Motion; from IDEs to ikigai. We’ll find out why open source projects succeed where well-funded corporate projects fail, why are there so many JavaScript frameworks – and why you’re still sitting up writing code at 3am, even though you know you have work in the morning.

Other talks by Dylan Beattie