Our recent interview with 13 year old coders got us thinking further – does age play a factor on why people code? To find out, we went on a quest to find out what coding means to the future generation of employees and looked at how those thoughts compare to those of an age where the digital world hasn’t surrounded their entire life.
To do this we talked to a 13-year-old coder and a 31-year-old coder to find out if they share motivations and if they work in a similar way.
Specifically, we’ve interviewed Kyran at Hanham Woods Academy and Oli Ward (pictured right), experienced professional coder at Develop Me. We asked them both about their lives as coders. Here an extract, head to our website to read the full article.
ADLIB: Why do you code?
Kyran: I code for a few reasons, because when I’m older I would like to make games for consoles like Xbox and PlayStation. I also code in school for my Computer Science GCSE course. Most of my games come from playing around with code then turning it into something that can be played.
Oli: Coding helps pay the bills, but I also do it because I love it.
I also work in other areas of digital technology, such as doing project management or advising tech teams on how to work better.
But I really enjoy coming back to just creating things through code.
I do a lot of coding outside of work, for my own interest and to learn more. The world of coding is constantly changing, and it’s important to keep up-to-date.
“I think most coders have a drive to learn more”
For me the rewarding part is both the ends and the means. I enjoy the abstract process of planning and building things, and also enjoy creating a working final product. As well as solving a lot of the “Why doesn’t it work?!” problems along the way.
I think most coders have a drive to learn more, to work better and to solve new problems, and it’s the same with me.
ADLIB: What do you like the most about coding?
Kyran: My favourite part of coding is when your game is finished and you run the program and see it come to life.
Oli: I love thinking about and solving problems, and at the end of the day having created something that works, and that, hopefully, works well.
ADLIB: Oli, how do you choose what you create/ what projects you commit to?
Oli: Mostly I choose to contribute to projects that I believe in what they’re doing.
For example, I’m involved in a friend’s project to build a Bristol bike classified site that is intended to become a hub for the Bristol cycling community.
I am really into cycling so I was excited to get involved. It also has some features that are intended to make it harder to sell stolen bikes and, hopefully, reduce bike theft in the city. We’ve been working with a few stolen bike projects, using their APIs (data feeds of stolen bike info) and I think it’s an exciting and new feature to build.
In the end, it seems to be come down to starting, working on and finishing projects for the love of the outcome, be it games or cycling platforms.
Thank you Kyran and Oli!
