Writing Things
I'm still here and I'd like to continue writing, if you'll have me.
Been a while since I posted anything over here. Developing software has changed a little bit since. Here's some prose, instead.
Blogging has always been a way for me to share what I learn in my day-to-day as a person who builds software, whilst hopefully improving my writing. Naturally that meant targeting software engineers with programming and other tech content[1]. But what can I write that is interesting to other developers now?
The last big thing I published was about the SOLID principles. Whatever your or my opinion of them now, they are ideas that ostensibly lead to the better writing of software. But writing software is tremendously different now. I wouldn't be so quick as to advocate ditching everything we've learned over the (albeit short) history of software engineering, but I admit that my interest in these topics has waned.
I've always enjoyed programming, but even before things got crazy this last year or so, I knew I was in it more for building stuff rather than the process of the building of the stuff. Writing code is interesting but oh look what I just made! It's weird how we've simultaneously gone all-in on this concept whilst at the same time forgetting why. I digress.
But! The elephant in the room[2]! What's my take? Does anyone really care? Everybody and their mother has a profound take somewhere between "the machines are generating worthless slop" to "humans are unnecessary now," but no one really knows where we are or where we're going. I'm tired of hearing about it, to be honest, and I know I'm not qualified to have a take. Maybe a few people on the frontier are; those trustworthy few that are reportedly part of a brainwashed sex cult.
When did everything get so weird? And where am I going with this?
I guess this post is about two things.
Thing A: I'm going to write more, but I'm just going to write things. Sometimes it'll be things about software. Sometimes I'll see a nice donkey in a field and tell you about it. Or maybe I went to another conference lately and there was something I want to share about it. Maybe I'll have… a take.
Article two: My writing will be unapologetically human. Sometimes that means it'll be a mess of several different topics with no sense of cohesion throughout, much like you're reading now. Sometimes I'll give it more structure and you might even find it useful. But most importantly: it'll be written by me and not a machine.
Likely that no one will read it. That's fine, too!
I used to spend so much time polishing and perfecting everything I'd write that it took the fun out of it, and I'd dread getting started. There's nothing wrong with that, to a point. But I actually rather much prefer writing in a more casual sense. I'm a very casual person.
But more importantly, being submitted to the reams of LLM-generated, LinkedIn-Thought-Leader, blessed-for-the-opportunity slop-speak leaves me feeling fucking violated.
I won't be part of that problem. Give me your crappy drawings and your shitty music any day over that, and I'll do my little bit in my tiny corner of this great place.
I'm doing okay, by the way!