The Value of Play

Do you realize the enormous value of working on fun, personal projects?

Having fun is the foundation of my career. Some people hope to enjoy their jobs some day. If I didn't have fun at work and keep exploring web development on my own time then I never would have developed the skills to enter the profession!

Lately, I've been mastering the nuances of JavaScript during my play time. I've enjoyed pondering the unique philosophy of the JavaScript language and learning how to make snappy user interfaces. As an added bonus I've also earned a super valuable skill!

I've been playing with the language for a long time on a basic level: Calculating styles based on window size, adding a text box counter, creating nifty roll over and click events, etc. This stage of learning was essential for me: I started to get a sense that JavaScript was not another class-based object-oriented language like Ruby, Java, and C++. I started paying close attention to how others were using the language to be effective and expressive.

Today, I'm playing around with fully client side applications and contributing to a JavaScript framework at work. A long ways from the basic JavaScript that I was writing just a year or two ago!

I love having a job where regularly playing with new things has such a high value! Getting paid to have fun?? Who'da thunk!