Aged or Jaded?

I have a new teammate. He's recently out of college and reminds me of me at that point in my life. He's secure in what he knows, willing to challenge the established practices, respectful of the "elders" on the team, etc. I miss the times when I didn't worry about the other dynamics of software development, when the code itself was the focus of the effort and the reward for a job well done.

So what is it that changed things for me? Some of it I would classify as maturing, seeing that there is more than code to having a successful product. Good code is easier to maintain and it is still a joy to see. But not everyone has the same definition of good. Good code simply works; both in that it is simple and that it does just what it should. Good code may also be judged for lucidity, elegance, brevity or even against "coding standards" -- someone's idea of a quantifiable measure of good. I've started to add: Good code is maintainable code, well documented and testable. Unfortunately, that starts to become a balancing act with elegance and brevity as not everyone is able to write or understand code at the same level. In this case, the maturing aspect is the inclusion of others in the goal.

But, it's more than that. Much of it is that I'm growing tired of the fight. I'm weary from nearly arguing about quality and costs with management that does not want to hear anything other than what is it going to cost the customer on contract. There's no buy-in to producing good code. It seems that the bean-counter definition that drives decision making is: Good code is shipped code. That's it, nothing else would seem to matter. I've put together justifications about technology upgrades to bring codebases into today's world (much of those are over a decade old!) The cost of being unable to attract or retain good developers doesn't seem to matter. Yet we're expected to be judged on quality, meeting customer expectations and other "Good Code" (and important outcomes) metrics. Apparently we're expected to do this for free or on someone elses' dime.

It would be nice to get back to the simple definitions, to being the happy coder truly enraptured with my job. Where I could have simple pride in the completion of the job, not, "if you qualify it thusly, make this exception, take that into consideration... Yeah, I could be proud if it!" Yet, somehow, I still enjoy the work. It's still a thrill to see the software through the customer's eyes. I really love it when on first demo they pick at little things because it means we've truly impressed them and nailed the big stuff!

So, Is it that I'm Aged or Jaded?


My answer: Yes.

You Know You're a Parent When...

Romantic time starts with, "Are they asleep?"
And ends with. " Yes, so am I. Goodnight."