Programmers Don’t Like to Code

Jonathan Rentzsch has blogged that Programmers Don’t Like to Code and I couldn’t agree more with what he says. The gist of his post boils down to this:

Programmers don’t like to code, we like to solve problems. Coding is not problem solving, but software problem solving usually involves some coding.

Solving problems is far more interesting than writing code. Writing code is tedious and annoying half the time. And personally, once I’ve solved the problem I am very disinterested in the rest of the code that needs to be written to create a full application. I’m not really a finisher. Any projects I have finished took a lot of effort to push through the de-motivation of working on something I was fundamentally not interested in. When you’ve got a problem you want to solve you are generating ideas and ideas are fun to play around with. Once you’ve got a solution in mind finding how to implement it can also be fun (though not always). I enjoy writing prototypes and getting the guts of the solution in place but once it comes time to move beyond that I start to slow down. My interest wanes and my procrastination increases.

This isn’t only in relation to software projects. I enjoy the act of photographing and solving the problem of creating the picture I want but I rarely bother to print the result. The series of articles I want to write for this blog were a lot of fun to research and makes notes about but I haven’t sat down to write them yet. When I took my first course at The Workshops the founder of the school gave a presentation that resonated with me. He said it was quite alright that you not be a finisher so long as you form a relationship with a craftsman who is one. In photography this means finder yourself a master printer. I wonder if such detail oriented folks exist in the software industry? Perhaps I need to find one for my software projects.

Squirrel Busting

Squirrel Busting

Originally uploaded by srcleaves.

We received this SquirrelBuster Plus bird feeder as a gift last year but just got the hanger for it this past weekend. It didn’t take the birds any time at all to find it and as you can see the food level is down appreciably in three days. So far we’re regularly visited by chickadees, cardinals, and tutfted titmouse and occasionally by a couple I haven’t identified yet. Of course it was no surprise when the squirrels turned up. While we are using high quality bird seed with no filler some of the birds are picky and just toss things to the ground. One of the squirrels seemed quite content to collect what he could find. The other was far more daring as you can see from this photo. That is a tufted titmouse in the background. (Photo was taken through a window.)

Edit: I have nothing against squirrels eating, if they can get the food out more power to them, but I do want the birds to get their fair share. I have no proof of this yet, but I suspect the design flaw of this feeder will be that just swinging it from the top will cause seed to drop out of the holes. The way it is intended to stop squirrels (and anything heavier than a certain weight) from taking food is that the entire perch drops and shuts off access to the food. I found on the first day that I had set the weight too low because it closed when a cardinal landed on it. Compared to birds a squirrel weighs quite a lot, but how much difference is there between a big blue jay and a cardinal?

Three female wild turkeys

Three female wild turkeys

Originally uploaded by srcleaves.

I was eating lunch and looking out the kitchen window on this dreary November day when suddenly a large bird walked into view. I was stunned momentarily but quickly raced to get my digital camera. By the time I got back to the window there were these three. I confirmed in my Audobon guide that they are female wild turkeys. I know this isn’t the best shot, it was through a window and with a very slow shutter speed without a tripod.

Quite an interesting visit given that Sara and I are getting our first turkey this weekend from a local farm that raises them as sustainably and humanely as possible. We’ve both been vegetarians for many years but the fact of the matter is that locally (and organically) raised meat is far more sustainable than packaged and processed vegetarian substitutes from California.