Why this?

I like software. I like the promise of software. I’m frustrated by the lack of follow-through of most software. My mission in life is not to add to the pool of frustrating software, but to produce things that enhance people’s lives and help them to spend less time doing the things they need to do so that they can spend more time doing the things they want to do.

As noble and altruistic as that is, I’m not at all confused about how hard it is to achieve that. I’ve had my hits and misses. I hope to document a lot of what I do, and discover, here. It’s part online storage for things I find that I think may interest at least one other human being, part cathartic writing excersise to help get my head around some of the misses, and small part vanity. Just because.

Now, surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), I work for someone. When I’m there doing what they want, I toe the company line. This blog is not “there”. I’ll do my best not to make a fool of myself on here, but you’ve got to remember that this is my playground and occasionally I will say something that doesn’t resonate with my employer’s ideals or thinking. And that’s OK. Just don’t confuse the two.

I hope you have found something you can take away from here and use to help spread around the idea of good software. It’s not actually hard to make, but it does take more time and effort than making rubbish software. While people still largely use software to simply “get the job done”, then cost is always going to be the prime consideration. While cost is the prime consideration for software, time and effort become premium.

We need to refocus people’s idea of the value of software. When you see a well-built, beautiful house, you can appreciate the effort and attention to detail. So it is with many things. And so it should be with software. It’s a fight that must now be fought if we’re to pull software out of the industrial age.

Sometimes you just have to stand up for something you believe in.