I love programming, love how great the tools are. I realized this when a teacher complained about how good 'the young kids' who had better tools than he had, this guy was younger than 30! I remember thinking it's great that tools get better and better! I have stories from other teachers who had to flip switches on a byte to enter a command! I recently finished my education and started my first real job. It's not great, because it's a web site and I don't like working on web stuff. Coupling between system components is poor and I don't like communicating in general. But it't a pure software company (300+ people) and many divisions and oppertunities to work on new products. I don't know if I'm good enough, but I like working on math stuff. Euler project, Fibonacci algorithm, my own chess computer. So that's what I'd like to do at this company. Can't imagine not wanting to program, even if it's a web site. What do you think about web site building tools? It seems to me they have a long way to go.

Gamification won't just work everywhere. Most things are very hard to turn into a game. An example where it works perfectly is a mod on crimsonland. You stand in the middle of a field while monsters come crawling towards you. They each have a text above their head and when you type the text correctly and press enter your character shoots a shotgun blast at the monster. This combines typing skills with fun and action. In the case of Stackoverflow, yes there are game elements but it's still not a game. Therefore it will only matter to people who care about programming quality. Microsoft tried something similar with programming achievements, which has not really worked. I think the reason is that you don't get a total point count for good work and there is no place to show off your score.