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Lately I've taken to call myself a "code plumber" at work. Mostly I work in the depths of infrastructure doing things that are invisible to users, usually invol
by akkartik 10y ago
Lately I've taken to call myself a "code plumber" at work. Mostly I work in the depths of infrastructure doing things that are invisible to users, usually involving thick pipes transferring petabytes from place A to place B, then place B to place C.. I rarely create anything new from whole cloth, most of what I do is maintenance and monitoring. Even the large projects involve migrations of various sorts. On the rare occasions I build something new and user-visible, 99% of it lies submerged in the backend.
All this means that (since I'm pretty one-dimensional and all I do is hack) I need my side project to stay sane :)
- abstractbeliefs 10y agodespite the downvotes, I think this is a pretty apt analogy. Just the same as in house building, there are few architects who designed the master plan, there are some managers and skilled laborers who lead groups, and many less exciting roles that are still vitally important and knowledgeable in their trade. 99% of work where I am is connecting up a GUI to the hardware control subsystem of a medical product. The hardware control was relatively small work but interesting. Correctly managing the flow of data in a way that it's easy and safe for users to operate is not at all sexy, but vitally important, and ultimately, what sells our product.
- whamlastxmas 10y ago"Computer Janitor" is my favorite. Though plumber is also nice, because on some level it's all about turning fresh input into complete shit.
- akkartik 10y agoJanitor = low status, which doesn't reflect reality. Plumber = Mario, which can be aspirational in a Tom Sawyer sort of way. :)