So maybe I am strange… I actually have printed snips of source code and UML diagrams and hung them on my office wall because I found them inspirational.
Reminds me of a quote from The Matrix movies…
Cypher [to Neo]: “I don’t even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head.” 🙂
It’s not quite like that, but you get the point. There’s gotta be a back-story behind the witty writing. I suspect it has something to do with a programmer appreciating particularly elegant solutions.
One of the hard parts about knowing that programming is an artful craft is being forced to write artless code. It happens all the time. Risks get in the way… a risk of going over budget, blowing the schedule, adding complexity, breaking something else.
It all builds up. The reality is, as much as we software implementers really want application development to be an art, our business sponsors really want it to be a defined process.
The good news for programmers is that every application is a custom application.
It really sucks when you’re surgically injecting a single new business rule into an existing, ancient system.
This is the case with one of my current clients. At every corner, there’s a constraint limiting me. One false move, and whole subsystems could fail… I have such limited visibility into those subsystems, I won’t know until after I deploy to their QA systems and let them discover it. If I ask for more visibility, we risk scope creep. The risks pile up, force my hand, and I end up pushed into a very tightly confined implementation. The end result is awkward, at best. It’s arguably even more unmaintainable.
These are the types of projects that remind me to appreciate those snips of inspirational code.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy there’s a fitting solution within scope at all. I’m very happy that the client’s happy… the project’s under budget and ahead of schedule.
The “fun” in this case, has been facing the Class 5 rapids, and finding that one navigable path to a solution.
See also:
politechnosis: Art & Science
