…I’ve moved all my software-development posts over to my new software-development blog, where I’m currently in the midst of a series chronicling my evaluation of Perl 6.
At least since the mid 2000’s, when I wrote about software, I tried to keep it popular, non-techie, or at least about the culture rather than the coding. On my new SD blog, I am no longer afraid to use lots of code snippets. And I’ve taken to publishing sample code on GitHub.
Why the change? Am I going back to software development? Yes, I think so. I haven’t given up writing. But I’ve updated my resume. I’ve come to terms with the fact that not everything and everyone and everyplace in software is like this:
On the other hand, I’m trying to avoid getting caught in a workplace like this again. For a creative type like me, who depends so heavily on innovation, on constant improvement, on challenging the status quo for the better. Working with others who do not share that passion, it can be positively demoralizing.
You may recall my struggle with depression, precipitated by working conditions common to the software industry.
However, as a consultant, I’ve had a number of gigs that have been utterly pleasurable. In fact, most of them have been. So it is possible to do good work inside a modern software-development organization. And it is possible to find fulfillment in it. True, I still have friends who complain about their dysfunctional workplaces. But the functional ones also exist, and I know it is possible to find them.
I don’t know how long the search will be, but I’m no longer afraid of it.
-TimK
Most encouraging. If industry still wants me, I’m right behind you…..
Nathaniel Talbott’s RubyConf 2008 talk, “Fear of Programmingâ€: calls this
Creation Anxiety: The Fear of Making Art (Technophobia? for want of a better term.) I should never fear creativity, discovery, invention, tomorrow’s solutions to tomorrow’s problems.