Software Artisan

How often do you see something cool, and take a picture of it? How often does it resurface 60 years later? Yep, this picture is another from the set of pictures my grandparents took around 1949. I think it is quite telling how no one thought it strange to take a camera to a pool back in the day, but now it’s an international crime.

No doubt this gentleman was showing off for the ladies. No matter how strong you are, you can only hold a pose like that for so long. Without all the modern gadgetry of today, my grandma was able to take this picture quickly enough. When photographing people you do have to be ready. The camera was loaded, and probably set for a reasonable exposure given the time of day. All that was needed was to cock the shutter (if it wasn’t a press type shutter that was self cocking) and release it. Advance the film and be ready for the next one.

Is there anything that could have done better? Absolutely, but what’s done is done. I think in this instant age where everything is done for you, the effort to retry is so little that people tend not to be as critical as they should be before pulling the trigger. The really good picture is lost in a sea of mediocre pictures, and will likely never see the light of paper.

Quite frankly, quantity is the enemy of excellence. I’ve taken literally thousands of pictures, and more than half of them are really good—some excellent. However, the pain of going through them all will likely cause them to never really get any special treatment. Wall space is more precious than album space, which is in turn more precious than hard drive space or negative storage space. While I publish far fewer pictures and take far fewer pictures now, the ones I do take are on average better than when I took several at a time. This fact doesn’t change whether I shoot digital or film.

Don’t be afraid not to take a picture if you can’t make it special. Have you ever taken a picture of something you thought was amazing, but after you took the picture it looked so-so? I know I have. Have you ever taken a step to either side or gotten lower or higher to reveal on film (or digital frame) what you were experiencing? Do your walkabout quickly to get in position if you can. A mediocre picture of a spectacular event is is more frustrating to me than not having the right picture of the event. I’ve not taken pictures because the moment passed before I found the right position—but I’ve also learned from that experience. I can better anticipate the right perspective now.

Don’t be afraid to make your own decisions about what you like and don’t like. There’s lots of opinions and guidelines about what makes a good picture. However, if you don’t like a picture that follows the rules then you don’t like it. Break the rules and make something you do like. That’s when you develop your own style.

Don’t be afraid to try something different. Whether it’s going old school or new school, you can only grow by incorporating new tools or processes. Just make sure you don’t try too much too quickly. Introduce yourself one bit at a time to the new stuff. Build on what you’ve learned so far and go a step further. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on equipment you’ll never get around to using. As you add to your equipment, learn to use the new stuff properly before you get the next thing.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to enjoy what you do. If all you are doing is worrying about how to make your equipment pay for itself with jobs then it’s only a matter of time before you get burned out. Find something that you enjoy, that relaxes you, and don’t worry about trying to make it pay for itself. Just have fun.

I’ve been using this blog as a way to talk about my adventures in programming, but as of late I sound like a broken record. I don’t have time to explore new things like I used to, and right now I’m in the process of pounding out code. It’s not active design, nor am I in control of the project any more. Times cycle, and I may be in that position again—even soon. However, I have a creative outlet with my photography. There’s different things you can do in the darkroom, new experiments to try with developing, etc.

I’m going to focus on my hobby, where I have most of my fun. All the old articles are still here, and won’t be going anywhere. I did want to give fair warning, knowing I’ll lose some of my audience. You may enjoy it if you stick around, so let’s all have fun and enjoy ourselves.

I have to say that both academia and corporations suffer from taking themselves too seriously. Sure there is a certain amount of propriety that you have to have with your clients, but people like having fun. They want to enjoy themselves. So why is it that science becomes such a fun-sucker? I mean you would think that having subjects like “funology” would be a great topic, but the scientific approach makes everyone stuffy. Then you visit the campus of MIT or something like that and people have robot powered couches and other cool stuff. Why? Because it’s fun!

If you play video games, you’ll invariably have to learn something before you really get into the game. The rules of fighting, how to get around, etc. Some games are better than others about teaching you what to do without making it feel like a classroom setting. Ok, press the ‘X’ button two times really fast… Thankfully the education levels are usually pretty quick. It’s a pity you can’t say “I already played the game, can’t I skip the class?”.

So what does this have to do with “serious” software? By serious I only mean that the software is supposed to do more than just amuse you. No matter how easy you make the software to use, there is invariably a learning curve. The fun aspect is learning what cool things you can do if you get into the app a little more. The reward is that you make your users look good. They get kudos from the people they work with, and you get a loyal customer. Whether you save them time or you give them power they wouldn’t have somewhere else. Does your application accept information automatically through an email address? What if the user wants to set up some things ahead of times like adding tags for a picture they upload, etc.?

If there is one thing that video games can teach us “serious” programmers (you can take yourself too seriously) is that if you properly reward your users for good actions, then they will keep doing it. Whether it was the intention or not, the Ruby on Rails framework teaches us how the writer of the application prefers to do web applications. The naming scheme for tables and the wiring of controllers, helpers, views, and models into one application all have their rewards. The fundamental reward for us developers is that if we do it the blessed way, we have less work to do with configuring and wiring things together. Even the code generators teach by example how to do things like how to do CRUD actions (the scaffolding feature). It now becomes fun to write web applications because we are rewarded for most things. Our imagination will help us overcome those obstacles that are beyond the basics we learned from the framework.

There is nothing that says we can’t use the same model for our applications. If our users learn how to use the app to make their lives better in simple, yet profound ways, they will want to become power users. If the users never get over the “I suck” threshold, even after examples and handholding, you will lose them. Making learning to be a fun activity doesn’t require a hippie teacher standing in front of a classroom with a guitar singing the times tables to the tune of “Gilligan’s Isle”. It just means that you make your users feel empowered, cool, or at the very least useful.