On software #4
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On software #4
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Are you having fun with this?
Did you really expect me to not approach the idea of writing about
software in any other way? Did you expect me to not be something of a
nerd about this?
I suppose not. Tell me about software, then.
What's to say? Mom decided that, since I was showing an interest in
computers, it might be a good thing to let me use her copy of
VisualBasic 4. From there, I just kept on going.
Well, hold on, you're skipping over a whole bunch of stuff.
I suppose so.
You're skipping over your dad joking that, since you spent so much
time on the computer, that he was always worried that the FBI would
come knocking on the door one day.
Well, he was the one who got me the computers in the first place. He
bought me a copy of RedHat 6.2 on a CD at Circuit City.
Oh, my aching bones.
I know. Every single bit of that sentence was ancient.
Still, it's largely his fault. We strung coax throughout the house in a
simple network. He bought a file server, a copy of Windows NT, and we
worked on setting up IIS together so that we could have both a file
share as well as a way of getting those files from work for him, and my
mom's house for me.
Very kind of him. Forward thinking.
He wanted me to be an engineer. What better way to get me into the
mindset? Besides, *stuff* was his game. Our relationship was not yet
mature enoug that we could be buddies, so instead, he did what he
thought parents were supposed to do and punished, instructed, and
showered with gifts. It's just that some of those were computers.
As many gifts bounced off of me as those that stuck and proved useful.
Either way, start a kid on VisualBasic and give her access to AngelFire,
and you're bound to wound up with at least *some* kind of nerd.
Matthew was pretty keen on Perl at the start. Something about all the
delicious punctuation, all the built-in obfuscation was appealing.
Something about how you could write an incantastion that was difficult
to read unless you had the proper knowledge tickled him.
He wasn't very good at it.
Well, no. He was pretty terrible at it. He uploaded some samples to Perl
Monks and mostly got yelled at. From then on, he developed alone, with
little to no communication about what he was doing with anyone who might
be able to help.
A solipsistic software engineer? Color me surprised.
Right.
Perl filled high school. Dumb scripts to walk a directory (despite a
module already existing in CPAN). A guestbook. A forum. A terrible
website.
Was it that bad?
[RF!P](https://web.archive.org/web/20050202100148/http://ranna.babylonia.flatirons.org/)?
Oh yes.
At least you can see the dull adherence to monochromatic web design
started early on.
Listen. Color is hard.
Either way. There was a brief PHP phase toward the end of high school,
and then it was off to university and John Wright teaching him about
Python and Django, and he was lost.
It made it so easy to start projects.
Too easy.
Yes. They littered his computer, his [git
repositories](https://github.com/makyo-old/). Started and abandoned,
sometimes even before any code was written. There exist more than one
project which is simply a skeleton of a Django application with a name.
No code. No documents. No info.
No motivation.
Or maybe only the false motivation that comes along with hypomania.
At some point in late 2005, I got my first job in computers--
Well, hold on. What about that summer job at Rational?
That was before birth, remember. That happened to someone else. That
happened somewhere else.
You have nothing to say about your mom getting you a job testing
software with one of her friends? You have nothing to say about
learning the boredom of menial tasks? You have nothing to say about
the time you found a rendering bug in Java, some part of the
windowing system, but you couldn't file it because the bug was that
characters from the PuTTY screen showing your MUCK connection showed
through, scattershot? You have nothing to say about bagel mornings,
about the breakfast burritos you still think about, about stopping
at the hot dog cart on the way home and getting to know Mikey, who
sold them, about the countless jokes you shared about how awful
ketchup was on a hot dog?
Clearly you do.
You thought it was great at first. No restaurant work for your first
job, but something in computers. Something you could be proud of.
That pride your dad taught you. Then you learned about what goes
into a QA tester's job. Then you learned about how boring computers
could actually be. Then you learned how to resent them for how much
of a mistake they were in the first place.
Bit harsh, but true enough.
"Computers were a mistake", right? That's how you put it?
Yes.
So you got your first job in computers shortly after you were born
--- don't try to tell me it wasn't. It was the summer after your
Freshman year. Your metaphor won't always hold up.
...Ah. Right.
And then you never got a summer job again until university. You kept
looking, but there was little for you to do that would hold your
interest if computers were so spoiled for you. You applied at coffee
shops. You applied at Blockbuster. You applied at the YMCA.
And every summer, I disappointed my mom further.
Well, then I suppose my second job in computers was in late 2005, when I
got that job at the library. That was far more comfortable.
Or you were far more mature, perhaps.
Maybe. Either way, it was something that I was able to actually focus
on, do a good job on. There was downtime, and sometimes it got crazy.
Sometimes we'd come into the library long before it opened and blast
music while we installed or reimaged whole swaths of computers.
Sometimes we'd dick around. Nerf footballs, library cart racing. One
time Josiah locked the surplus filing cabinet we had but did not have
the key for and we had to drill out the lock. When we got it unlocked,
the first thing he did was to lock it again. We hollered and chased him
from the room as we struggled desperately to unlock the cabinet once
again.
It was fun.
For the most part, yes. I did some development for them, too. It was my
first software job as well as my first job in computers. I did the
Atmospheric Sciences Reading Room site. I did some campus mapping. I was
enjoying it.
Enjoying it enough that, when my future in music burned down around my
ears, I was ready enough to jump on any job offer in tech that I could
manage to pull off.
Whether or not it was something you might actually enjoy.
Yes.
At least I enjoyed it at first.
You did, yes. You worked ten, twelve hours a day.
I was doing something. I was actually producing something, and it was
being recognized by people. Music was fine, sure, but no one really paid
it much attention.
Is anybody paying attention to your writing?
You are.
If you say so.
A few others, maybe.
If you say so.
Don't be cruel.
If you say so.
I enjoyed it until I didn't. It turned into a grind, it turned
depressing. I started getting angry. I tried to commit suicide --- we'll
get to that later, just to preempt you distracting me.
You know me too well.
Do I?
Don't lose focus. You left UHG for Canonical, and started all over
again.
I lasted longer this time, in terms of burnout. I was productive for a
lot longer. I liked the job a lot better. Even after I left, I think I
liked it better at its worst than I liked IA at its worst.
And at least you did rather like some of the coworkers.
But we can talk about that later. Distraction, remember?
Sure, sure.
But it's been seven years, and it appears that's all I'm good for. I was
good for music for seven years. It's been seven years, and I'm not sure
I'm good for programming. Will writing fade from me, too? Seven years
down the line?
When will you fade?
When will you fade?
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This chapter of ally takes place in the git commit messages.
It's a stretch even for me, but hey, here we go.