You did it. You started your own project, delivered a working solution, even got traction from the community. It's all happening, and it's happening pretty fast. All your hopes and dreams came true. The feeling of relief should be imminent, but there are no signs of that happening any time soon... The journey has only just begun.
It's no secret how developers have adopted the pop-culture quote "The cake is a lie" to underline how all their efforts will ultimately have no reward. Yet we witness year after year an increasing number of aspiring young minds from various backgrounds, ranging from small towns to inner-city and suburbia, taking the pledge to go forward innovating. The reasons for this may vary but they always seem to have a solid foundation on idealism and personal gratification. This attitude of newcomers is a good reminder why anyone of us got into software development and can help recalibrate our compass for the road ahead.
Everybody wants the thrill of having real purpose in their life. That's enough reason to spur up and start working hard to get a completion streak, paying any cost along the way. That's what software development offers for many of us. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And sometimes you feel you were born to submit your work.
After developing for a while you feel for the code — it needs to be clean, it needs to be concise and compact. It needs to make sense. If you can't follow the logic there must be something wrong with the architecture of the creation. Everyday presents a new opportunity, a new challenge and facing anything other than the optimal solution makes you wanna rebel and say "No, this can't be right". Intention is pinnacle. Never side-track, never compromise — and what is right will happen.
Creating useful code is honorable in its own right. This is not the kind of code that's used to satisfy some personal wank. It's not "opinionated" tech demos that are impressive but cannot be reproduced in real world projects, because the code is too rigid, hard-coded or not modularized. This kind of work not many developers can deliver, and yet it may not be accompanied with credit or rewards because in our world those are not directly related to the quality of the work. But you can rest assured that your "coding garden" will be exactly as it should be; and that's a great feeling that makes all the effort worthwhile.
Most people are consumers; that's the simple reality. Everyone has needs but only a minuscule fraction of us is creating any solutions to satisfy them. Thus your users are awaiting, searching, living to find meaning and emotion through your creation. For those that are "touched" by your work, you'll be forever trusted and respected. But they won't help you create a better product; they can't .
In light of this it may seem that software development is a loner's game; a difficult, time-consuming, and at times frustrating profession. Even if you possess the broad creative vision and a pedantic attention to detail that's required, you'll still have to endure living in a lonely world where hardly anyone understands you.
Those with a normal personality will do exactly what they have to, to achieve a goal, applying the minimum required effort and then happily spend the rest of their time doing nothing useful. It takes a certain personality to say: "I know that I can do this much and live a happy life, but I will do 10x and risk everything, only to satisfy my urge and curiosity if I can do it."
It's probably not the best image, but admittedly a rather common sight, that of a developer in a dumpy room, surrounded by the smell of farts and fast food. All these sacrifices developers make in their health and living conditions, to name a few, just so they can complete a creation that they can share with others. Even if they succeed, the development never ends. It goes on and on, and on, and on…
We all know about the hockey stick chart in terms of growth but many are unaware of the "reverse" hockey stick chart of development. Basically, after any new release there is an extensive period of whining down development that includes bug fixes, tweaks and reactive amends. Returning to the idea of the "coding garden", everything takes as much time as it needs to, to mature and produce fruit.
As a science, software development's free form exploration of solutions is its greatest asset, allowing the adventurous to investigate new ideas by experimenting and learning. The general rule here is that not everything that can be done should be done. Adding all possible options will make a cluttered, incohesive mess. This rule guides us to add only what will improve the user experience.
Still, there seems to be a lot of pressure from external factors regarding enhancements, more so if a creation becomes a successful product. Many developers give up not because they don't care, but because they do. They care too much about people's expectations, about the competitors strategy, about their image and their legacy. They care, too much.
This constant state of flux during development may be troubling but taking a step back and holding on to that feeling that originally drew us in could become our lifeboat. Lets never forget the original pledge of sacrificing our lives and our well-being for the betterment of humanity.
Creating for the love of the craft, selflessly devoting yourself without expecting recognition and taking the time to focus on the things that are most meaningful to you are some of the few principals young minds gift us with their fresh perspective. Following them shall give us a winning shot to endure the marathon that's called software development.