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> Software engineering is something I do because I have bills to pay. Programming is something I started doing because it’s fun.

Sudden clarity.

I feel like printing it and putting it next to my workstation, so that I remember this both when doing something fun and when having to work so that my bills get paid.




Yeah, this is a very important realization to make in a career of a software engineer.

Other points to internalize:

- in business, software is made to either earn money or pay less money. All other effects are at best secondary

- code is a liability as much (or more) as it is an asset

- programming is the easy 0-20% of the job of the software engineer, the rest is making sure the right thing gets programmed

- no matter what they tell you it’s a people problem

- software is always broken but it keeps running as long as practitioners are keeping it within the operational envelope




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