1.2. Creativity and motivation

While this book is not intended for professional programmers, professional programming can be a very rewarding job both financially and personally. Building useful, elegant, and clever programs for others to use is a very creative activity. Your computer or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) usually contains many different programs from many different groups of programmers, each competing for your attention and interest. They try their best to meet your needs and give you a great user experience in the process. In some situations, when you choose a piece of software, the programmers are directly compensated because of your choice.

If we think of programs as the creative output of groups of programmers, perhaps the following figure is a more sensible version of our PDA:

For now, our primary motivation is not to make money or please end users, but instead for us to be more productive in handling the data and information that we will encounter in our lives. When you first start, you will be both the programmer and the end user of your programs. As you gain skill as a programmer and programming feels more creative to you, your thoughts may turn toward developing programs for others.

Q-1: Which of the following is true about this book?

• This book intended for professional programmers.
• Try again. This book is not for professional programmers.
• This book is intended to create more productive programmers.
• This book is for learning efficient and productive programming, especially when multiple programs are competing for your attention.
• This book is intended for computers with a single program.
• Try again.
• All of the above.
• Not quite. Only one of the above is true about this book.
• None of the above.
• One of the above is correct.

Q-2: True or False? You will be both the programmer and the user in this book.

• True
• You will be both writing programs and using them in this book.
• False
• Try again. You will be working on both sides.

Q-3: True or False? The primary motivation of this book is to please end users and make money.

• True
• Try again!
• False
• The primary motivation of this book is for us to be more productive in handling the data and information that we will encounter in our lives.

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