As I was taking a tea break, I found I was looking forward to going back to work. Asked myself why. Because my program had a bug in it. Why would a bug make one more excited to work? Because it would probably be straightforward to catch, and satisfying to fix.
There are some bugs (usually involving hard to reproduce state) that are miserable to deal with. But except for those, debugging is one of the most satisfying parts of programming, because the problem is so constrained. It's like intellectual comfort food.
This is one reason you like programming more as you get more experienced. For beginners, debugging is mixed with fear. Oh no, my program doesn't work! When the fear recedes, debugging becomes not merely tolerable but pleasant.
I suppose debugging wouldn't be pleasant if I were more disciplined. "If I hadn't made these mistakes, I could be using my intellectual powers to the utmost, instead of wasting time fixing them," I should be saying (ideally in a German accent). But I'm not that disciplined.
