[This is originally the first post for this blog... somehow got lost in the archives so it is now posted at a later date]
The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.
I already did some of the journey this past 3 years, but the new frontier is more dangerous and unpredictable. Normally, the next step should be on a Monday. Ideally, it should have been a Saturday. We started on a Sunday evening.
I never knew reflection would work flawlessly in Java – must be beginner’s luck. I was also surprised to see Snoopy automatically log in to a site as long as I mention the action aside from the username and password. I never knew our $5,000 RFID reader would read tags perfectly in the office only to breakdown in production. I never knew we can always do secret things even in not-so secret places.
I already missed Accenture. Good thing I had to start in an unconventional schedule. I missed my mushy ex-team, my pwnage group as well as my drink mates. I miss them all.
I am now wasting productive time by kickstarting this blog while at my business partner’s house. I’m more comfortable thinking of him as a college friend than a business partner – I’m not a businessman by heart. I just want the programming challenge, and the fact that I’ll be having my neck in line for the cutting from this day forward. Clients are a lot like women – unreasonable, but they make life colorful, if not worth living.
My goal for going into business is plain and simple – to be filthy rich. It could’ve happened in my previous work, but there are key differences. One is that I can work with other projects without the fear of corporate copyright balderdash – my partners knew full well that I have problems focusing on a single task. I’m a multitasking machine, and I can never focus unless I have the alt-tab ready.
Another stark difference is that I can wear my natural self. I don’t have to shave. I hate shaving. Although I shaved just yesterday as a symbolic ritual for a new beginning. I am also thinking of having a slight body modification to top it off – a piercing.
The real difference is in the methodology. I have no problems with processes, but I do have problems with frameworks. I just don’t like CMMi. I don’t like pretending to myself that things will not go wrong as long as I can document it, and that predictable events actually help my life. If only I had wished a boring monotonous life, that would be perfect. But like my idol, 2pac, I’m a bit addicted to the fast life. CMMi makes software development a lot like a manufacturing process – rows of machines we call programmers mass producing spare parts that constitute a huge application. A residue of the industrial age.
Programmers are thinking machines, yes, but boredom and durdgery to us is like old age to a whore. Predictability is the enemy of creativity, which leans more to spontaneity. Documentation is boring enough, and CMMi tells me to document my documentation.
I do believe that a streamlined process can offer success, but the big ones never really succumbed into that idea. Cowboy programmers will always be the most skilled coders in the world, and CMMi is the managerial attempt to turn them into a herd. That may not produce the intended results.
I would like to think that software houses should be run like recording companies. Both are dealing with creative people capable of producing works of art that are readily distributable. People may need music more than they need software, but the times are changing. The stars had them narrated already.
My family had been very supportive in my decision. Same as true with my girl. Props to them.
If you haden’t notice, I don’t like sticking to a single topic. I just write what pops out of my head.
It’s a Monday morning, with 2 hours worth of sleep. Ran Asikawa is almost done. We had one more requirement left, and we plan to be in the client site at 9am. I am in perfect control. I am not excited, nor nervous. I am above what is happening. Zazen. Just like my first amateur Muay Thai fight.
Fortune favors the bold. History taught me that.
