May 2012
1 post
Code Soloist #22: Skip ahead, and settle in
You’re going to die. Before you do, you probably want to achieve certain milestones, personal and professional, physical, emotional, financial. There is a pressure to achieve everything your list. A culture of achievement and futuring provides the motivation.
But your list is a mile long, far greater in number than the lists of your parents, who were trained to focus on a core trade and...
April 2012
1 post
Code Soloist #21: What the fear of success really...
When I was safely wrapped in the warm blanket of inexperience, I used to hear people talk cleverly about the “fear of success”. It’s this bizarre concept that some people stop themselves from doing what it takes to succeed, because they are subconsciously unprepared for the consequences, for suddenly having enough.
From the perspective of someone who hadn’t launched a...
January 2012
1 post
Code Soloist #20: Resolutions
In the aftermath of the season of resolutions we like to make bold commitments to ourselves, except that they aren’t bold and they aren’t commitments. They aren’t bold, because they are the same things we hope for ourselves, secretly, constantly, when we are alone. We drag them out each year and put them on display: our best selves. They aren’t commitments because they...
December 2011
2 posts
Code Soloist #19: Interventions
I read the post of a young man, much like myself, who is lamenting his addiction to idea creation, to finding more satisfaction living in the possibilities of new projects than in the reality of building them. He has a lot of domain names, because he believes the thrill of it is in the beginning.
That fact that we don’t hear more stories like these is only because few people have the...
Code Soloist #18: The distance is the same
Imagine you are standing on one side of a football field. You start running towards the other end, and depending on how many times you’ve done this before, you feel pain, or fatigue, or burning in your lungs. Or perhaps just the sheer pleasure of feeling warm wind in your face. When you reach the other side, you are finished.
Now, run the same field, but this time, be an ant. Run over the...
September 2011
1 post
Code Soloist #17: Beware the Gentleman Coder
There are some in our world whose work is truly inspired. When they launch a new project nonchalantly from their pixel-perfect blog, communities form up around the intellectual scraps.
This is the domain of the Gentleman Coder, a term I stole from a colleague, while I was trying to convince him that it’s not a great idea to take a few days off a project that’s meant to provide him a...
July 2011
1 post
Code Soloist #16: Stop spending money
This one is short. Stop spending so much money chasing your tail, or a dream. If you’re anything like me, you have these sudden, pivotal shifts in inspiration that convince you that this is the idea, and this is the [consultant / designer / component / service] that’s going to make all the difference.
It isn’t. It’s not. The idea you were already working on was plenty good...
June 2011
1 post
Code Soloist #15: Take your eyes off the prize
We’re often told to fixate on the end result, so that we produce the effort required right now to achieve it. “Keep your eyes on the prize” makes tigers of us all. But the problem with this approach is that we don’t recognize that without already possessing a concrete plan, and the necessary motivation, the strategy fails. In fact, “keep your eyes on the prize”...
April 2011
1 post
Code Soloist #14: Stay interested
You really can, and do, get bored of your own ideas. Even your best ones. Many times the sheer act of expending effort on a great idea is enough to kill it. It’s okay. But you need to hack the mental system in any way you can, or you’re going to walk off the set of one of your projects, even if it’s a good part of the way there (80% done, 20% complete). I’ve already done this. I’ll...
February 2011
1 post
Code Soloist #13: Don't trade on happiness
Here are two concepts that have risen, seemingly in opposition, in the last two years in product-focused business engineering, specifically for soloists of all trades:
1. Do what’s in your DNA and avoid everything else. Follow your passion.
This is most definitely the mantra in Gary Vaynerchuk’s first book “Crush It!”, and his many talks leading up to that release. The...
January 2011
1 post
Code Soloist #12: These are the things you think...
You think you can build an ambitious startup* by yourself. The truth is, you can build any number of them that you feel are 80% complete. Turns out, 80% of the business is in the other 20% you can’t do well, or fast, or cheaply. Pareto’s a bitch. You’re better off in terms of expectations if you flip Pareto’s principle around: when you’re 80% done, you’re 20% of...
December 2010
2 posts
Code Soloist #11: What it really means to simplify
When people say in order to be successful you should simplify your life, it doesn’t mean you should remove things from it. It actually means you should cement things, and make them automatic.
For example, simplifying your life doesn’t mean cutting out that 9am run you’ve been meaning to have, but never acted on. It means forming a habit where you no longer have to think and...
Code Soloist #10: Fight process, not principles
Because we play in a digital world, developers tend to have an over-inflated sense of spoon bendability: we believe that because we build inside this world, it means we’re creating it, when in reality our creations are still bound by most of the same laws as our bodies are.
When we create, we must obey the constraints of time and money, or more generally, our own energy. You cannot fight...
October 2010
1 post
Code Soloist #9: Go dark
There is a time to create and there is a time to share. You can’t do both at the same time, and you can’t do one exclusively. If all you did was create, nobody would know, and nothing would change as a result of all your effort. If all you did was share, you’d quickly run out of things worth sharing and people would notice. There are lots of folks in both camps. It’s easy...
September 2010
2 posts
Code Soloist #8: Draw your line
You need to draw a line in the sand and stand behind it. There’s a sort of cap on the amount of inspiration, planning, and daydreaming you can do before you inevitably must take a stand on what you intend to create. After you reach this enthusiasm ceiling, you can only do one of two things. I have met a lot of people who are simply addicted to the potential of building a business and so they spend...
Code Soloist #7: Take the shortcut
A few years ago a good friend of mine used a quote from a stupid movie to change how I thought about hard work.
It was from Road Trip: “It’s supposed to be a challenge, that’s why they call it a shortcut. If it was easy it would just be the way.”
If it was really possible to join some paid subscription site, or read this or that book, or outsource everything to foreign...
August 2010
2 posts
Code Soloist #6: Do the thing
Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Do the thing, and you will have the power.”
What I believe he meant was that experience is the only true filter, for both consuming and producing value. When you actually know how to do something, which you’ve earned by throwing yourself at a problem and living with all its trade-offs, disappointments, and victories, you see similar aspiration and...
Code Soloist #5: Play your game
As a single developer you need to avoid several problems that larger teams (that’s everyone else) face in order to maximize your chance of success. Narrowing your vision on an achievable business as a soloist, rather than the one you’re thinking of, will feel like someone put a brick on your brake pedal.
You know this tired line from the big blogs and books, and you’ve probably...
July 2010
2 posts
Code Soloist #4: Don't extract
You’ll likely read lots of inspiring literature on business and technology to keep you motivated and learn from the best. In Rework, Jason and David point you down the path of seeking the “extraction”, explaining that you can’t just make one thing, and often the extractions you find along the way—a book of wisdom here, an open source web framework there—can lead...
Code Soloist #3: Stop guessing
You don’t know when you’re going to be done your next project.
If I had to pick a single drawback of being a code soloist, it’s this one. You may believe initially that you have a good feel for how long these things take, but you’ll only realize much later, when your artificial deadlines slip, that you really only have feelings, not a feel.
Your feeling is that any...
June 2010
4 posts
Code Soloist #2: Your lover has to love it
The short version: If your significant other doesn’t love your idea, you should find another one (a note to the hardcore: I’m talking about the idea).
I’m also not talking about that pre-adulthood kind of love for everything you do, but a genuine interest in what you’re proposing to offer the world. Even better would be that your other has a genuine use for the product or...
Code Soloist #1: Don't work at night
Your web business is a huge part of your life and you’ve undoubtedly set up a self-imposed deadline to get it out there. You did this because nobody else will do it for you, and you thrive under pressure. As you get into your stride and start pushing it out, you might catch yourself temporarily looking up to see the big picture. The big picture always looks impossible to achieve from where...
A pattern of performance
I’ve noticed something I’m going to take the time to fully explore in the next while. Here it is: an “affected” developer starts at a big corporation, breaks off as a freelancer, and then finds a smaller group of like-minded individuals, great contributions and commercial success follows after.
To those still in the first intake, being a lone wolf seems like the best...
Developers and Sartre
Sartre said “hell is other people”. He didn’t say it to cast himself as the depressed, hapless thinker, he was observing the threatening process every person experiences when they encounter another person. The gist of it, is that while you are able to experience yourself as an autonomous individual, to be absorbed in the self and forgetting the body, you are forced by the laws of...
May 2010
5 posts
Discipline
“Do what you know you should.”
The hardest part of discipline sounds like the easiest.
If you did what you knew you should, you’d be ten years younger metabolically, you could count all eight of your abdominal muscles by sight, and you’d be much further along most of your personal endeavours.
Things get interesting when we attempt to live in to the self that knows what...
To be great, be good at more than one thing
Most of the time the thinking goes: focus on one thing relentlessly to the detriment of just about everything else, and you will break through. It’s a mentality borne from the persuasive 10,000 hours observation and the emotional high of success through perseverance that has survived at least 2,345 years of theater.
One path to greatness at software development is to be good at other...
The age of the freelancer
Companies are desperate for talent and it shows.
More often than not, part of the spiel of any software house is their relentless quest for the best of the best. Whether they make good on their promises to seek out truly great people and make them comfortable, or continue to follow the lowest common denominator principles of hiring aside, the problem persists.
Jason Fried tells businesses to...
The impossibility gap
Not enough people are attempting the impossible.
It’s odd to think that as a society we can barely keep up with the technological demands for the absolutely mundane, let alone the extraordinary.
We praise simplicity because we spent years polluting software with complexity. I appreciate that the effects reduce noise and make it easier to consume software, but it has created an entire...
Practice whole body development
Many developers suffer from myopia, and not just the glasses-on-your-face kind you can get a prescription for. Literally we just see what’s in front of us, usually to the detriment of everything else.
And then routine sets in. What’s in front of us is a screen and a keyboard. We forget to take breaks and we catch our rays through the window. We read “coding ninja” and...
April 2010
2 posts
Coding arts and crafts
Lately the trend has been for developers to refer to themselves as craftsfolk. “Hi, I’m a software craftsman”. This is due to a debate about software development not having a central artistic element, and that we should focus on function and form in our created works like a carpenter cares about function and form in theirs. There’s even a manifesto for it, if...
The digital age still ages
I have a lot of files. They mainly consist of the eBooks I am certain I’ll make the time to read, code spikes I know I’ll finish and turn into products, software I purchased that sits unused today but will save me in the future, graphic design assets for web application ideas that will someday see the light of day. Each piece is important, and worth the time and effort I spend...