What is it about us software engineers?
On the one hand we're the good kind of lazy, we love optimisation and efficiency. We automate the most menial tasks so we don't need to waste time on them ever again. If you've a product mindset, you're no stranger to the concept of Minimum Viable Product. You're always asking the why's, using TDD to drive design evolution, and only reaching for abstraction when there's a need. Yet, when it comes to our own private projects - we're all in on the over engineering.
We love a good meaty problem, the curlier the more intriguing. And there's nothing wrong with over engineering if your goal is experimentation, learning and fun right? But what about when that's a form of procrastination?
For five years my sad old blog has lay in that dusty, dark corner of the internet where all neglected blogs lie, never a visitor, unloved. I have dreamed of resurrecting it. You'd be forgiven for thinking, when I say "resurrect", that I wrote more than a "hello world" post and a follow up. You'd be wrong, it's a vacuous collection of broken CSS, despite being lovingly composed with the best of intentions.
It was 2015 (the good old days) I hadn't learned to code yet, this was my first foray into learning to code as a hobby. Fresh faced, innocent (some might say naive), eyes glittering, I rolled up my sleeves to get started. Finally I was practicing what I (had myself) preached in many presentations to junior developers on how to break into the industry.
"Focus on the three Ps; Practice, Persistence and Presence."
I needed a blog for that last P, I needed Presence and pronto!
Without hesitation, I reached for Jekyll, it's a fantastic and simple open source static site generator, not complex when you have some experience under your belt.
I learned a lot as I experimented and broke things. About CSS and the feels associated with cascading down into those pits of despair. About infrastructure and how much I loved understanding how the internet evened. I served my blog from AWS s3, configured route53 for my DNS, and to this day it's up (with minimal costs associated). So it was a success of types.
What I didn't do was continue to blog and that's because my choice of tool didn't serve my needs. I was hung up on a particular solution rather than asking "what are you trying to achieve?".
I wanted to practice writing about technical subject matter, to sharpen and hone my skills, to share and help others who were struggling with similar issues.
After an inspirational conversation with @KaslinFields and laughing at my failure I'm heeding her advice of "Do it!" with a renewed vigor and a more fitting tool for my needs. Use whatever tool is right for you, there's no need to over complicate things.
Always be the right kind of lazy (and smart)!
Top comments (1)
It’s such a pain that those three Ps can be overcome by just one; procrastination. At least, that has been my problem in the past (or indeed, present, it was 4 months between my latest 2 blog posts!).
Look forward to reading what you’re going to write Mel!