In today's inspiration episode, I talk about the non-permanence of our work, and how that empowers us to make faster decisions.
In today's inspiration episode, I talk about the non-permanence of our work, and how that empowers us to make faster decisions.
Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell and this is your weekly inspiration episode. I recently said to a client that what we do on the web is all a draft and that it always will be. And it was a moment of epiphany for me. I realized that very much unlike books where the actual printed words on the paper are somewhat permanent, unless of course a child comes along and scratches them out, those words were decided and then sent to press. And other than releasing new editions of the same book, they're... They're kind of set in stone, right? They're printed on paper and they aren't going to change. What's amazing about development, about software development, is that we now, especially because of the connected world that we live in and continuous development delivery, continuous delivery to the client, whether that's on the web or via an app in the app store or constantly auto-updating features, whatever it is, we have the ability to view and treat the work that we do as a constant living draft. This in and of itself is very inspirational for me because it helps me to be more confident when I am making mistakes. When you sit down to write a draft for a paper, let's say you're in school and you're approaching the problem that a teacher has given you to write an essay about. You write a draft. You write a draft to get out the essence of what you are trying to accomplish with that paper. And in large part, that essence, that very first draft is what the final draft looks like, usually. Good writers very often write their first draft and then have few edits, but good writers very often also write their first draft and have many edits. The essence of a program. The essence of a program may be able to be written in a MVP, a minimum viable product. It might be able to be written in a second or third testing round. It might be able to be written after 20 tests. Or it's very possible that that particular thing is always going to be in a draft state, that it will never be considered completely finished. And in fact, it might be replaced before it is ever called finished. And what's amazing about that to me and what is so empowering and inspiring to me about the fact that everything that I do can change in nearly an instant is that it provides me the freedom to make mistakes and to fix those mistakes with very little cost. Now, of course, I want to avoid shipping mistakes. I test my software to avoid shipping mistakes. I look through. I look through the interface to make sure there's no glitches, that the rendering is all working properly. But if I make a mistake, it's not like if I made a typo in a book. I can reship to all of the people who are viewing that particular software. I can reship that software and immediately those mistakes are gone. It's like reprinting a new edition of a book with almost no cost, no overhead, and no delivery. That is an inspiring thought to me. So go forth in your day-to-day work thinking about the work that you do more as a draft than a final revision. That will give you the options of making mistakes, of being able to go back and fix things quickly. And it'll keep you from delaying until you feel like everything is perfectly done and ready to send to the press. Because there is no press. There is no printing. There is nothing to be done when you're shipping software. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Developer Tea. I hope it was inspirational to you. If you have questions, comments, or thoughts, you can reach out to me on Twitter at developertea. You can always email me at developertea at gmail.com. If these episodes are valuable to you, please consider donating at developertea.com front slash donate. I see every single person's name when they donate. I see that donation come in. And I'm so thankful for each and every one of you who have chosen to be in that select group of people who support this show and help it run on a day-to-day basis. Thank you so much. And until next time, enjoy your tea.