The last few days have again reminded me that if I must be working, I’m very lucky to have the job that I do. Aside from the obvious bonus of working in the midst of a movie studio, most of the work I’m now doing is challenging — a lot of computer work is like building a jigsaw puzzle, and I find it hugely interesting to try and fit all of the pieces together. The analogy fails a bit since puzzles can only be put together in one way, while the same computer system could be built in an infinite number of ways. Due to the many paths one could take, the challenge then becomes looking for the ways to simplify and improve upon the design. Good programming is a process of evolution as excess is stripped away and simplified until what is left is a streamlined, versatile system that is usually flexible enough that it not only solves the obvious problems well, but also handles unusual cases in obvious ways — S.C. Johnson was speaking to the same engineering goal when he said “A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author.”
"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell