Saturday, April 16, 2011

"Private Pyle, you are definitely born again hard. Hell, I may even allow you to serve as a rifleman in my beloved corp."

Over the past year I feel like perhaps I too have been born again hard.  After nearly a decade of increasing "responsibility" and the white papers, power points, project management - I even joined the ranks of the PMP for god knows what reason.  After all that, the TOGAF cert and EA boards and buzzword central, I'd had enough and re-joined the ranks of the engineer, tossing aside the shackles of enterprise architecture.

Actually, I misspoke.  No choo-choos or cantilevers at my job.  Rather, I took my place again among the brotherhood of the developer. I'll admit I dislike the title of engineer as much as I do architect.  I'm not working on railroads, or crafting the next generation computer processor, just as I'm not designing buildings or bridges.  I'm developing software, which is still in its infancy and thus is still as much art as it is science.  That's what I love about it.  I'd forgotten what an aesthetically beautiful thing a well designed piece of software can be, even apart what it might do.  And I love it that I can look at what I wrote three months ago (or even three weeks ago) and see what a piece of shit it was.  It doesn't mean I'm a bad developer but that I'm continually becoming a better one.

For now, I'll leave the houses to Frank Lloyd Wright.