> But what's ALSO happened, many times, is I look at old code I wrote... and I'm IMPRESSED. Just blown away by the beautiful elegance and power of the abstractions I came up with, the sheer intelligence of the approach, the insight and lucidity oozing from the code.
> "Wow, I wrote THAT?!" Because I was deep in a coding trance when I wrote it. So deep "in the zone", that when I come out, it's not easy to recapture where I was. Not even the next day, and certainly not months later.
I attribute code I wrote in this way to "the other me".
A huge problem I encountered when hitting the working world was this: common features at corporate shops, such as open-plan offices and Scrum, seem almost calculated to stifle "the other me" from coming out. It's as if the company doesn't want a programmer to rely on their other self to write the damn code, and by reducing everybody to the exact same kind of gibbering idiot and training that gibbering idiot to write code, programmers become easier to hire (because any gibbering idiot will do), and more replaceable (because you are not relying on a programmer's particularly potent other self to deeply understand, fix, and solve problems).
And yes, "gibbering idiot" is about how I assess the intelligence of my normal "talking" self that has to engage with other people, especially in comparison to the "other me".
I responded without reading anyone else's comments-- I'm so happy that my Past [name], Future [name], dialogue is something other people do! You're "other me" is the same as my "Past Jon"
haha-- Remember to thank your "other me" and you should make sure to drop little notes addressed to your future self-- beacuse it is REALLY rewarding to find a note you left addressing your future self like "Hey, Future Self-- If you're looking for the actual module that does the communication-- it's: [location]"
And if a year later you are doing EXACTLY that-- trying to track down that thing-- and you start with something you know -- and find that note- It's hard to not exclaim- "Thanks Past Self, you just saved me some searching- hats off to you sir"
“But even the hacker who works alone,” said Master Foo, “collaborates with others, and must constantly communicate clearly to them, lest his work become confused and lost.”
“Of what others do you speak?” the Prodigy demanded.
> "Wow, I wrote THAT?!" Because I was deep in a coding trance when I wrote it. So deep "in the zone", that when I come out, it's not easy to recapture where I was. Not even the next day, and certainly not months later.
I attribute code I wrote in this way to "the other me".
A huge problem I encountered when hitting the working world was this: common features at corporate shops, such as open-plan offices and Scrum, seem almost calculated to stifle "the other me" from coming out. It's as if the company doesn't want a programmer to rely on their other self to write the damn code, and by reducing everybody to the exact same kind of gibbering idiot and training that gibbering idiot to write code, programmers become easier to hire (because any gibbering idiot will do), and more replaceable (because you are not relying on a programmer's particularly potent other self to deeply understand, fix, and solve problems).
And yes, "gibbering idiot" is about how I assess the intelligence of my normal "talking" self that has to engage with other people, especially in comparison to the "other me".