i'm not sure if i ever really "liked" programming, or if i just like magic and the unknown and learning how to speak a computer's language felt like magic.
i think it stopped feeling like magic when i a) became sort of an expert (kind of like seeing the mundanity of how a magic trick works) and b) was forced to use my talents to make money for someone else or else i would die.
anyway, i think this is exemplified in a shift in my fiction from just writing stories about computers and robots doing neat things with people to finding life and magic existing in the fringes of reality and challenging/expanding what person-ness means.