I wouldn’t know where to start but I do know how to end this reflection, and it’s so simple that it would be summarized in two phrases, “It’s not a country for programmers” and “Being mediocre is more relaxing and will bring you more”.
When one has been developing for more than 20 years and has always filled their mouth saying that they have enjoyed, enjoy and will enjoy programming, in the strangest or most common languages, with the most peculiar and strange technologies, the most cutting-edge and the most “old-fashioned”, but each one in its moment and only for the most (as much as possible) precise implementation, one should better keep quiet.
In a world where fashions, buzzwords, “palabros”… there’s no longer room for programming as I’ve always understood it, which is nothing more than proposing the most suitable solution to a problem/need.
If I start making a list of programming languages I’ve used, I wouldn’t know where to start and I’d forget most of them: C, C++, Java, Python, Rebol, C#, Basic, Rebol, PHP, Go, Xbase, VB, Fortran, Pascal, Cobol, Clipper, Scala, Ruby, Delphi, Lua, Asm, Logo, Perl, Swift, Objective-C, Javascript, Coffeescript, UnrealScript, Smalltalk,… the systems I’ve had to touch/install/manage likewise: Xenix, AIX, AS/400, Windows, OS X, Linux (each one from its mother and father), NetBSD, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Neutrino,… Databases: xBase, MongoDB, MySQL, Oracle, Redis, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Cayley, DB/2, CouchDB,… and all to do something real, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve lost valuable time, a quality of life that others have and no matter how much I repeat to myself that I enjoy what I do, I think I’m lying to myself.
It’s strange, but I think that what I’ve always enjoyed: Algorithms, methodologies, patterns,… which I devoured and tried to implement and discarded if they didn’t fit what I wanted to do, has been like a vice that like all vices takes something from you and hasn’t given you anything for a long time.
Many times we’ve heard “they don’t know how to do the O with a tube” and this phrase is revealing, because without a doubt, if you make the “O” with a tube you’ll be what’s expected of you, experience, capacity is something that has no weight in our sector, make the O with minimum effort and move on, sorry… no… to another O.
I feel, and with the frankness I’ve always had, that I’ve lost at least a decade of my life doing what I do, I’ve invested in this sector, in this curious vice of synthesizing and making things without any kind of compensation.
If I turn my head, physically, I see my greatest sins: to the right two Raspberry PIs that are test machines, I wrongly considered that if I could get my developments to work there like shots it meant I was doing it well,… too much effort, too much thinking about optimization, systems and high availability, what’s really relevant is “big horse, whether it walks or not”. If I look down, there’s a FreeBSD and a Linux, also for testing, if I look back I have Windows, Android and IOS, for the same thing,… basically, a supreme stupidity, and to the left I have a cabinet, mostly because I’m not talking about my “work zone” but my “rest” bedroom.
I’m tired of listening to the fratricidal wars of X vs Y, if Java, if Ruby, if such framework, if such database, if such OS especially when it’s the only thing they’ve touched (the most “fervent”) and they haven’t even scratched the surface, they’re “discussions” I don’t enter into because there’s a lack of critical awareness, lack of experience, lack of putting oneself in the client/user’s shoes and thinking about the best solution for them and not our comfort zone,… we are our biggest problem.
For many reasons, I’ve come, after a complete analysis and with the necessary measure, to the conclusion that if I had done only 10% of what I’ve done I would have been a happier person, at least I would have had time for things I’ve had to leave aside like music, photography, food,…
I need and I think I’m still in time, to give a turn and forget this world, forget fervors and dogmas of faith, palabros and methodologies that are used as a guide without getting your hands dirty, and move on to something else, I don’t have a place in this sector because it’s a “3-card monte” sector and what I’ve always done, how I’ve done it and how I’ve approached it is at another level (neither higher nor lower) only there’s no room and it’s “annoying”. When I say annoying, I say it with cause, when sharing, learning, teaching,… is considered a “danger” to those who have a position/role.
In this reflection there’s no victimism since everything has an explanation, a why, but I can’t say anything else, it fills me with a sadness at levels I didn’t know could exist.
I have many anecdotes (as I call experiences), but I can’t/shouldn’t comment on them, to avoid it being considered something personal (if someone is part of that experience), it only has the relevance I give it and for me, which added together have reaffirmed me in the conclusion I’ve reached.
On May 25th I’ll give a small talk about Go in Huelva at their Betabeers and it will be the last appearance I’ll give at a developer gathering, I like to do it, and a lot, but I think it’s nothing more than feeding this vice and I want/need to quit.
That phrase of “I’ve forgotten things you haven’t learned yet” will never be heard again, I’m switching to “worker” mode and “3-card monte”.
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