Programming is in a niche in comparison to other hobbies / professions in that it is a creative process where you can repeat the experiment endlessly and without physical costs or destruction (assuming your code is not operating a robot or something in the physical world). Re-writing pieces of your code and re-running never fails to bring joy to me. Painting, carpentry, racing, etc; do not have an analogue. Producing digital art (music, for example), writing and tinkering with mathematics come close.
Researchers in chemistry and biology may enjoy a similar joy, but I assume it is much more difficult to re-run your experiment with slightly different ingredients. One aspect where these fields are leaps ahead of code is "code producing code": chain reactions are common in the real world and in fact, probably key to the whole thing.
Researchers in chemistry and biology may enjoy a similar joy, but I assume it is much more difficult to re-run your experiment with slightly different ingredients. One aspect where these fields are leaps ahead of code is "code producing code": chain reactions are common in the real world and in fact, probably key to the whole thing.