RSpec my authority!

Reg Braithwaite is one of my absolute favorite bloggers. He gets into nitty gritty code, and discusses the people process of building software on a high level. I hope that some day I'll be able to write even a fraction of the stuff he does about software development and management. Here's my first story.

I just went through my first breakdown as a programmer. My bosses told me it's happened to them, it'll happen to me, don't worry about it. Their job is just to delay it for as long as possible, and make it as painless as possible when it does happen. Yes you're a young stud, but young studs burn out too.

Well it hit me. Not like I thought it would though. I didn't work too hard or too long. I just got disconnected from my team.

In the beginning it was really easy. We basically started with a clean slate. Every day I'd talk with my teammates, we'd check in code, and slowly (actually, pretty quickly ;) our app grew closer to what we imagined. It felt great, making tons of progress each day and knowing it was vital to our company.

Then we started getting customers. Gradually we let people in. Sites started popping up, powered by our platform. This is great, right? Despite what my girlfriend might say, I'm not writing this code for my personal amusement. We build software so that people can use it.

But something happened, and as it turns out, the problem is that something wasn't happening around me. Now our conference calls revolve around what's going on with particular customers. Who's launching when, new deals with providers - the kinds of things that are important and good as a business.

It all just seems so far away though. I know that it's not possible without the work I've done. And it's certainly the direction we need to go in. It all just seems so far away. If I could just grab a beer with my coworkers at the end of the day, I'd feel I'm a part of what's going on.

I'm going to chalk this up to immaturity. It seems pretty simple, now that I've had a chance to go through it. Don't lose sight of the ultimate goal. Just because things have exploded in size and scope doesn't mean I'm not a part of it anymore. I should be just as happy to know that Client X was ecstatic about Feature Y as I was about watching our app materialize out of nothing.

It can be easy to lose some of the feeling of being a team. Especially when the goals go from focused and concrete to huge and abstract. However that's when it becomes most important to come together as a strong team - concrete goals are relatively easy and can be solved with enough elbow grease. It takes an intelligent, cooperative team to realize the vision we've created for ourselves.

Fortunately I'm proud to work with some awesome people. I'm looking forward to being a part of that team again.