The best programmers I know

I wonder about this often: If you want to have impact/solve problems/make money, not just optimizing killing your JIRA tickets, should you invest a given hour into understanding the lowest code layer of framework X, or talk to people in the business domain? Read documentation or a book on accessibility in embedded systems? Pick up yet another tech stack or simply get faster at the one you have that is "good enough"?

Not easy to answer, but worth keeping in mind that there is more to programming than just programming.

We can look at a software developer as a craftsperson, and appreciate their skill and their craft, and we can look at them as a business asset, and those are two different things.

Both of which have their merits, but this article is clearly focused on the craftsperson side and that's enough. We don't need to make everything about business and money, and we definitely don't need to reduce the beauty and craft of writing code to Jira tickets.

I treat it as a craft, and do it for personal fulfillment and learning. I enjoy learning, and solving problems. I also enjoy creating stuff that I find aesthetically pleasing.

For example, I write iOS apps, and I’m working on a new version of a timer app that I’ve had in the App Store, for over a decade. I had added a Watch app to it, and had gotten to the point where it was ready for the App Store, but I kept having sync issues. It wasn’t a “showstopper,” but it was aesthetically not pleasing.

I determined that it was an issue that could be addressed by improving the fundamental design of the app, which had basically been constant for many years.

So I'm rewriting it completely.

That’s not something that makes “commercial” sense, but it’s what I want to do. I’ll also take the opportunity to redesign the basic UI.

I enjoy having that kind of freedom.

I also like to write about my work. I know that very few people are interested in reading it, but I do it, because it helps me to learn (the best way to learn, is to teach), and it helps me to focus my thoughts.