My first computer was one of the first C64 sold in our town. Yes, I played games on it – but I also learned, by reverse engineering, how to write programs in BASIC and code in 6502 machine code. Then Assembler, then the Amiga, and with it C. Tools got more comfortable, yet the need to think in CPU cycles on a 1MHz CPU and a lack of memory had taught me to first understand and then dissect problems into micro-chunks of probleminos, instead of blinding users with “bells and whistles”.
Understanding what a solution was meant to REALLY do instead of how it should look like it was doing has been my life’s headline. I tried to live that outside of computers as well: Observe, think, do what’s necessary. I often failed, and that made me a better developer and a better me.
Cut to the now and here. For close to 12 years I have been helping a client to survive in the business horrors that are the movie industries (“underbid to over-deliver”). They prided themselves, and I joined that chorus cheerfully, in delivering the best quality products. No vacation for me, fixing things almost 365 days a year, never raising my fees to keep everyone over water was fine for me. It felt like family and like in a buddy movie, we had become trusting partners. Cliché? Maybe, but it was great.
It has not been the rise of AI coding that pulled the rug from under me. It is today’s maxim: “Good enough is perfect”. While the market around us kept ruining itself, I had said “sorry, I can’t” to new opportunities over the years, just like that client stayed with me when business was low. Then, out of the blue, I was told that for their clients “being better” was not really wanted, “good enough” was king. Overnight, my client-family ghosted me completely. No head start, no “thanks for everything”, no call from people that had relied on me 24/7 for so long.
Poof.
The lessons I am learning from this are: Charging just enough to make ends meet, but not enough to be safe, was a mistake. Being loyal to a client that works in a market where “being loyal” means “being weak and be killed” was the second mistake; I should have taken whatever opportunity I could find and job-hop for always-higher-pays. And third, learning new tricks to always extend your horizon only counts if you charge someone for it. I should have used my curiosity to climb the competition ladder instead of holding its base steady for others.
The problem I have with these lessons is this: Every single one of them goes against my ethics. I want to learn. I want to be loyal and give rather than take. And I want to be better than “good enough”.
The lesson I take away from THAT realization: My over 45 years of software development, which made me what I am, what I always wanted to be, may come to an end, if that is what it takes to continue learning, make mistakes, learn from them and be loyal to people that appreciate it.
It’s not too late to learn that there’s more out there than developing software.
