The Freak Parade

Jimmy Bogard recently gave an interesting sermon on the topic of passion in software development. I always enjoy posts like this. While I love the technical insights that flow like a river from the software development community, there is an under-served but very real need to pan out from time to time and reflect on the larger experience.

Software developers are an interesting breed – on the one hand we are technicians and engineers, a left-brained, puzzle solving people, and yet the medium in which we work is almost pure imagination. We sculpt more than we build, and yet we focus so intently on the mechanics and the techniques that I think we have a tendency to de-emphasize the broader creative process and the very human aspects of what we are really doing all day with these wonderful machines. So a discussion of passion, and particularly an encouragement to extend our passion beyond the realm of simply solving interesting logical puzzles, is refreshing and needed.

In his post Jimmy calls out the tendency of software developers to practice in an unbalanced way, to practice in a way that is obsessively, even selfishly focused on the self-gratifying enjoyment of technology for its own sake. If we were a self contained community of artists then it would be alright for us to practice in such a narrow minded way, we could revel in our technology with reckless abandon. But of course that is not the case. As a profession we are simply an organ in a much larger organism and we depend on the health and prosperity of the organism for our survival as much as it depends on us, despite our legendary hubris.

Observing this, Jimmy suggests that our ultimate success relies on our being as passionate about the domains we serve as we are about the software itself. He separates passion for “our craft” from passion for “the domain.” While I wholeheartedly agree with the underlying principal of what he is saying, I think his separating “the domain” from “the craft” and demanding software developers apply passion in equal measures to both does a great disservice to “the craft” and would be impossible to achieve for most of us in any event.

Any programmer reading Jimmy’s blog probably has little if any passion to spare. Software practitioners of an ilk that read blogs like those found at Los Techies are not looking for new outlets through which to direct our energies; we are already giving all we can (and often more) to “our craft.” Asking us to become passionate about the domains we serve is like asking someone running a marathon to pull a rickshaw full of tourists while they’re at it. Is it possible? Maybe. But it’s also absurd.

However, I certainly don’t think it is healthy, sustainable or ethical for us to fornicate with our technology at the expense of our patrons. I agree with Jimmy that such an approach to software development cannot end in success. I do, however, believe that a more appropriate mental framework would be to expand the scope of what we mean by “our craft” instead of relegating “our craft” to the realm of technology and layering on the additional responsibility of “the domain.” Most of us cannot be passionate about “the domain” anyway – if we could, we would have different careers. But we can, and we should, be passionate about shaping software that best contributes to the health and prosperity of the businesses in which we operate. This may seem similar to being passionate about “the domain”, but it is not at all the same thing. We should be passionate about our domain, but our domain is not technology any more than an artists domain is paint. An artist obsessed with paint may create some very beautiful colors, but uninteresting paintings. No, our domain is software, and software is about nothing if it isn’t about people. So we do have to understand the domains we serve through and through, we do have to place the user experience above technological self-gratification, but we should not dilute our passion by attempting to extend it beyond creating delightful, functional software.

In the end I think Mr. Bogard and I are saying the same thing – I don’t think he actually meant to suggest that we truly become passionate about, say, medical billing or real time currency trading, or whatever world you happen to be working in, but that we become passionate not just about technology but also (and predominantly) about sculpting software systems that enable those that are passionate about those things to achieve ever increasing levels performance and creativity. And I couldn’t agree more.