Christopher Warner "So, it's not like the code is my brain; keep it"

It’s interesting…

Over the last 2-3 weeks I gave myself sometime to make important decisions in regards to my life, career etc. It seems once a certain level or plateau is reached I make these sort of decisions every year or so. That isn't the case this time around though. No, this time around it's more vague. It's not a black and white feeling of plateau. It's more of a you are here, but you are not done. On the one hand, there is the this is awesome new stuff with all these goodies and on the other hand I feel like i'm building slowly into what will eventually be a beautiful piece of work. It's like the difference between someone handing you a lambo and you working on a custom built vehicle you've made yourself from scratch, a bugatti, by hand. Normally, i'm an easy sucker for a custom-car. I'll drive the lamb but it's just not me, custom-built from scratch?? That's more my speed; it'll most likely be faster than the lamb and generally be and overall cooler vehicle. If I had to build one; from scratch. it'd probably be the Bugatti Veyron or the Batmobile. Anyway, we are getting off track here.

Noting all of that I happened to be reading Advogato's recent log after sending out an email still debating this plateau. This is where cananian posted some links to Paul Graham which are pretty interesting reads. Good and Bad Procrastination, You weren't meant to have a boss and Great Hackers. Some of these things I agree with and some I don't. For instance, when you are writing a program and building something and are in the zone it's easy to "be in the zone". It happens to me, A. LOT. People tend to interpret these things the wrong way though, not realizing that you are in the middle of something just like when a construction worker is slamming a hammer on something. It's not the best time to talk about something mid-swing. This happens to anyone in any profession though; not just great hackers or system administrators. Also, the good vs bad procrastination is great, it explains my whole "They don't understand I have to work on this first; that other thing is like easy even though annoying to me.. I can get around to it after I finish this hard piece, which is actually more interesting and it's more interesting because it's hard and I can't figure it out yet" It's not the best time to talk about something. On the other hand; I think everyone needs a boss; once you have a passion for something it's easy to get carried away. Basically for me, I know that I can get carried away; I mean.. obsessively so. To the point where if I couldn't see outside I may have worked for a day or two at a time especially if i'm not getting to any point of frustration. My mom likes to tell the story where she says she used to turn out the lights on me so I would stop typing. It slowed me down for a couple of nights but that just taught me how to type without looking at the keyboard, which she really then regretted. Anyway, one needs someone to bring you back from that zone or all of the other things you have to take care of never get completed and i'm doing much better here recently. The thing about this that is really interesting though is how the essays relate pretty well to my decision making process in this case. Firstly, I don't consider myself a great hacker. At it's very core I'm a system administrator; lets just make that clear. I don't like to program for money because I end up having to write crap code. I'm a big fan of working systems, organisms, machinery. I'm also a big fan of walking around thinking about a problem until I have most of the angles figured out. Then I just write it out; Many of who know me will be nodding your heads at this point as I ask you seemingly random questions that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with what we were just talking about or why we have to turn around and go back to my place so I can write it down. The problem is that it just so happens that many systems are broken at the code level and that's such a goddamn irk to me. When I do a strace or stap and see all of these retarded calls. It's like did someone think this goddamn thing through? I don't mind a bug, or whatever but it's like.. goddamnit man. I can't do my job because someone wrote shit code.. SO, now I have to do their job and my job and if I don't have the code then I can't use it.. because really.. Can I walk away from this system and never return if we leave it with this crappy code? Probably not, because guess who's getting the call? Not the person who wrote the shit program... anyway again, I'm getting off topic...

Actually I think these essays helped me make my decision, which I'm now realizing is in the first paragraph.. Gotta go custom.. I am sorry to the lambo guys if you're reading. This was a pretty easy realization after reading the first paragraph for edit but it was a difficult road getting there before those essays and this is a extremely hard to let go. It's not the car, the car is beautiful.. it really really really is. The whole package is just amazing, if I was wired differently (and was an asshole) i'd already be driving. Sincerely.. I am honored to even have been considered far less handed the keys. It's just.. i'm in the middle of building a Bugatti I know I bitch about the problems but it will be nice when it's done. It's just, I am not done. If it was done maybe it would be different but I am not done.. It's just black and white, i'm not done. It's simply not the right choice for me right now... So.. now that i've self therapied.. disappointing and awkard conversations will commence. I'll think about it more over the weekend but i'm not sure i'll feel any differently. I'm pretty much hardline on the do-no-evil thing.

About Christopher Warner

No description. Please complete your profile.