I'm calling bull on this. Learning languages, at certain points, is always tedious. Whether that language is a computer language, or something like Greek, there comes a moment where "trudging" begins. The reason a person "trudges" is that they have a goal in mind that makes the trudging something to endure until that goal is achieved. Fun comes from not having to solve the same problem sixty times, or having to sort through a million files by hand when a program can do it in 3 seconds.
Hmm. I find learning fun, no matter what the scope is - even Greek, which remains obscure to me. (Quick, ask me something about Greek! I'll nod wisely and stroke my chin in deep thought and then get distracted and wander elsewhere.) But you're not wrong: there's a fun discovery phase, then a "hey, does this actually work" phase, and then a "crap, I need to figure out how to MAKE it work" phase, all of which are decision points where one might choose to not bother.