Another evening spent with code. The new project inherited the old project’s tech stack, so I’ve been reading through a lot of old code. Honestly, it was terrible—the variable naming, the sloppy function encapsulation, the type checking… there were so many errors that I just ended up using TypeScript as if it were JavaScript. Countless flags, primitive response handling—like an elementary school student who had just learned a bit about algorithms.
But it was precisely that kind of code that revealed my true passion. Even with poor technical skills, I still wanted to push through and complete it, no matter how difficult.
I remembered the last time I was reading documentation late at night, writing frontend code. It felt incredibly tedious, incredibly mechanical, making me seriously question what I actually enjoy. The only thing keeping me going that night was a dream I had back then—one that has now completely vanished.
Last time I wrote: “Do I truly love development? Or just the sense of accomplishment it brings? If it’s only about the sense of accomplishment, that would mean I only like it because it’s the only thing I’m good at. That seems pretty sad.”
Now my answer is: What I love is being able to genuinely help the world through my code, my projects, and even the papers I’ll publish in the future—to make even the smallest difference, to move the world toward my ideals, even if just by a tiny step.
At the same time, I do enjoy the satisfaction when problems get solved smoothly during development. But when it comes to the root of that joy, I still can’t quite put it into words.
If I can’t explain why I like something, is it still real love?