zen and the art of software.
It's code like this that makes me want to stay in bed in the morning:
hah. Well, onward and upward.
I rarely watch TV, but at some point we got basic cable. And now I am completely addicted to American Choppper. The guys in the shop are completely likeable and the fabrication stuff alone is worth watching. Funny enough, I'm not crazy about the theme bikes themselves -- I'll take something cleaner. Click that link. Say it with me. GODDAMN.
The show reminds me of writing software in some ways. These guys have been building bikes for years but there's always down-to-the-wire crunch time at the end. You know that episode where the night before a big delivery, they pull the beds out of their hotel room to work on the air ride suspension? I've done that.
But these guys get to build products they love. Can't say I get to do that at work all that often... business software (which is what programmers do if they don't work for a game company or for Adobe) is business software. Consumer software (that is to say, "software you might use at home") is where the fun is at -- for me at least.
Consider LiveJournal. Such a simple idea... but a good one. And it's crushing. 20 million page views per day.
The LiveJournal business model rocks: write a commerically viable web app -- something regular people will actually pay to use -- and open-source it. After all, none of the geeks who build their own version will have the resources/skills/desire to compete commercially. And if somebody else does try to compete commercially, you still own the brand. Which means that as long as you deliver quality, nobody can touch you. It's the best of all worlds.
Brad Fitzpatrick is the guy that wrote LiveJournal. He pretty much stumbled into success with it. He continues to write cool shit and open-source it. He's already working on another LJ-like project, based on the same business model.
And he's 23. Twenty-three! Get down, dude.
I guess that's about how old I was when I wrote Bucket... my closest thing to a "commercial success". I was fresh out of school, new to the area, living in a group house, and had nothing but time on my hands. I was a solution looking for problems. Ah, those were the days. I would never start a project like that now. I know I'd wake up and it would be 2 years later. If I had anything but completely niche ideas and I might be able to make a living with the result, that'd be one thing. But right now that's not the case. So my nifty ideas go unwritten and I get to do other things with my off hours. Life is a series of compromises. And I'll never be 23 again. Onward and upward, right?
I do still work on "consumer software", in a sense. And I really dig it. One of these years, I'll find a day job writing consumer stuff.
Only downside to American Chopper: the soundtrack consistently sucks. These guys need some Girder. I called the producer. He hasn't called me back (surprise). I probably ought to call Paul Sr. and say "nice show, but your music is embarrassing".