(This is a snapshot of my old weblog. New posts and selected republished essays can be found at raganwald.com.)
Monday, August 09, 2004
Taking Work Personally
I take software development personally. Developing great software is part of my identity. Doing a fecal, semi-hemispherical (make that "shitty, half-assed") job is, in effect, living my life in a shitty, half-assed way.
Lots of people in our industry jump all over this and talk about how you have to compromise on principles in order to make money, or succeed in company politics. Well, no you don't. Let's get this straight:
Shipping great software is the art of making compromises, of satisfying constraints. However, what makes one project great and another mediocre is the quality of the compromises. Deciding to ship the first Macintosh with 128k of RAM is an example of a high quality compromise. Deciding that it's too time-consuming to fix regressions before the end of the project is an example of a low quality compromise.
The same idea holds for making money, being effective in a team environment, or balancing work and home life. Compromise is the art of the possible, and being passionate is about putting yourself in a position to make high quality compromises.
So when people sigh and tell you that their projects are late because of compromises, they're copping out. The truth is, the people whining about being "reasonable" and "pragmatic"* are actually trying to make themselves feel good about being unprincipled, about having no particular interest in whether their work is great, fair, or poor.
They never had the passion, or they had it but sold out, or it was beaten out of them early. So they tell you how they'd like some principles, but they can't afford any. They're lying to themselves! The worst part of these whimperers is that a few of them secretly want you to fail! It would crumple their world view if you decided to work nights and weekends on some unpaid passionate work and you ended up creating the next friendster, oddpost, or groovy.
On the other hand, I don't mind if they all make tons of money. I'd rather they be happy where they are than sit at their desk all day drinking coffee from a TGIF mug and wishing they were rocking and rolling in a start-up. I've found that the passionate people I know feel the same way: they have an abundance mentality. The only thing I resent about passion-less programmers is their desire to pull us down to their level. It's a herd mentality, and I don't feel particularly bovine.
I'm thinking about this a lot right now. My partner and I are expecting a son this October. A few people who don't know me very well have suggested that now that I'm going to be a father (going to be? as my partner points out, the baby is already here!), I'm going to have to settle down and stop all this passion stuff.
Update:
As if! My feeling is that when you're twenty-one, with no kids and no long-term relationship, you can afford to take a job for the cash. Your life is work, very little sleep, and partying**. Who cares if the nine to five gig is rewarding? But when you're a parent, you're a role model. Now is the very worst time in the world to be working a job that doesn't reflect your values in a deep and meaningful way.
Kids learn from what you are, not what you say or even what you do. No matter what you tell them, they'll grow up to be like you in a fundamental way. Do you think for one moment I plan to have my children learn that work is something you do to pay the bills, but you really don't take any pride in it?
Next I'd have to tell them that you go to school because you need a degree to get a job, instead of an incredible opportunity to learn and meet brilliant, motivated people. Bah!
Okay, time to wrap this up, I've got to get to O----, where my friend Ethan Henry starts today. We're raising the bar another notch! This week I'm interviewing more candidates for a development position, and I'm looking really, really hard for people who feel the same way.
So, thank you for 'listening'. I feel better now, and I hope you do too: I really, truly hope you're going to spend today as passionately as possible. Not throwing a temper tantrum because you have to write your app in Java instead of Lisp, but striving to make those good compromises, the ones that push you closer to shipping a great piece of software.
* I do not mean the pragmatic programmers: those guys have so much passion they practically sweat passion onto every page of their book!
** I know this is old fashioned, but you can get a lot of software written if you avoid anyone who uses the word "party" as a verb :-)
I take software development personally. Developing great software is part of my identity. Doing a fecal, semi-hemispherical (make that "shitty, half-assed") job is, in effect, living my life in a shitty, half-assed way.
Lots of people in our industry jump all over this and talk about how you have to compromise on principles in order to make money, or succeed in company politics. Well, no you don't. Let's get this straight:
Shipping great software is the art of making compromises, of satisfying constraints. However, what makes one project great and another mediocre is the quality of the compromises. Deciding to ship the first Macintosh with 128k of RAM is an example of a high quality compromise. Deciding that it's too time-consuming to fix regressions before the end of the project is an example of a low quality compromise.
The same idea holds for making money, being effective in a team environment, or balancing work and home life. Compromise is the art of the possible, and being passionate is about putting yourself in a position to make high quality compromises.
So when people sigh and tell you that their projects are late because of compromises, they're copping out. The truth is, the people whining about being "reasonable" and "pragmatic"* are actually trying to make themselves feel good about being unprincipled, about having no particular interest in whether their work is great, fair, or poor.
They never had the passion, or they had it but sold out, or it was beaten out of them early. So they tell you how they'd like some principles, but they can't afford any. They're lying to themselves! The worst part of these whimperers is that a few of them secretly want you to fail! It would crumple their world view if you decided to work nights and weekends on some unpaid passionate work and you ended up creating the next friendster, oddpost, or groovy.
On the other hand, I don't mind if they all make tons of money. I'd rather they be happy where they are than sit at their desk all day drinking coffee from a TGIF mug and wishing they were rocking and rolling in a start-up. I've found that the passionate people I know feel the same way: they have an abundance mentality. The only thing I resent about passion-less programmers is their desire to pull us down to their level. It's a herd mentality, and I don't feel particularly bovine.
I'm thinking about this a lot right now. My partner and I are expecting a son this October. A few people who don't know me very well have suggested that now that I'm going to be a father (going to be? as my partner points out, the baby is already here!), I'm going to have to settle down and stop all this passion stuff.
Update:
As if! My feeling is that when you're twenty-one, with no kids and no long-term relationship, you can afford to take a job for the cash. Your life is work, very little sleep, and partying**. Who cares if the nine to five gig is rewarding? But when you're a parent, you're a role model. Now is the very worst time in the world to be working a job that doesn't reflect your values in a deep and meaningful way.
Kids learn from what you are, not what you say or even what you do. No matter what you tell them, they'll grow up to be like you in a fundamental way. Do you think for one moment I plan to have my children learn that work is something you do to pay the bills, but you really don't take any pride in it?
Next I'd have to tell them that you go to school because you need a degree to get a job, instead of an incredible opportunity to learn and meet brilliant, motivated people. Bah!
Okay, time to wrap this up, I've got to get to O----, where my friend Ethan Henry starts today. We're raising the bar another notch! This week I'm interviewing more candidates for a development position, and I'm looking really, really hard for people who feel the same way.
So, thank you for 'listening'. I feel better now, and I hope you do too: I really, truly hope you're going to spend today as passionately as possible. Not throwing a temper tantrum because you have to write your app in Java instead of Lisp, but striving to make those good compromises, the ones that push you closer to shipping a great piece of software.
* I do not mean the pragmatic programmers: those guys have so much passion they practically sweat passion onto every page of their book!
** I know this is old fashioned, but you can get a lot of software written if you avoid anyone who uses the word "party" as a verb :-)
Comments on “Taking Work Personally”:
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Although I might not go so far as to say software development is part of my identity (although that may be very correct), I do feel less human when I'm not fully exercising my creativity and "following my bliss" as a human or as a developer. I completely agree with your position on passionate software development and living in general. I've never bought into the total separation of work and personal life. Sure, there are different roles and contexts but it's all my life and I prefer to actually live it rather than sleep walk through it. Nice post. Good luck with your interviews.
# posted by 
: 8:59 AM
: 8:59 AM
What a great post.
I do really like that your passion is to make software. I'm often guilty of temper tantrums about languages when I should be more concerned about getting out something beautiful.
I do really like that your passion is to make software. I'm often guilty of temper tantrums about languages when I should be more concerned about getting out something beautiful.
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