Comments on: Do Hard Things

By: TVD

TVD — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:18:49 +0000

I second @Chris in Thanking You for writing this article @Drew – It needed to be said.

Many of us come back to this article to remind ourselves what we’re here to do.

Being engineers, mathematicians and scientists carries a certain nobility and with that a certain responsibility.

We did not train so hard to devise ever so more intricate ways to achieve data I/O.

We trained to challenge the status quo; To develop solutions that before were thought impossible; To leave the field we love so much better than when we met it; To do hard things.

Thank You for reminding us of this.

By: Kevin Horgan

Kevin Horgan — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:49:01 +0000

Thanks for writing this, after 6 months of CRUD last year I was searching a some inspiration for the new year and this arcticle is a great call to action.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:14:17 +0000

Thanks for writing this article, Drew – this really gave me food for thought.

By: Doug Hill

Doug Hill — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:01:37 +0000

In a workshop once we asked each other about our strategies for gift-giving. My first filter was, “Is there something that only I can give?”
Likewise for programming one might ask, “Is there a task that only I can do?” It’s not so much whether it’s hard or groundbreaking or cool, but if it ought to be done and no one else has the position, experiences, interest, perception, clout, perseverance, humility, attention, conceptual capacity or whatever the limiting item is, then that’s what you should do. It’s motivating to me at any rate.
I remember thinking many years ago, after reading the first volume of The Art of Computer Programming and hearing that Knuth was working on a typesetting language, that this was an odd thing to get caught up in. I think I understand his motivation better now.

By: Link: Do Hard Things

Link: Do Hard Things — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 14:10:06 +0000

[…] from the overall point of the post, Do Hard Things, there’s a bit at the end that really jumps out: Just as one dollar a day through the magic […]

By: cubeT

cubeT — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:43:31 +0000

Keep that going! Do what keeps you active and extends your abilites.

Just thought to share my view on the matter. You have to prepare yourself very well to compete with Outsourceizstan citizens in the freelance market. In Outsourceizstan big US companies offshore the ‘easy, dumb, CRUD’ jobs because they are easy so should be cheep right? On the other hand, people from Outsourceizstan are happy from the wage they receive there. But is it all about the money? Guess what happens when some team from Outsourceizstan of US corporation branch will start very interesting side project and will present it to top management? Just trivia, a thank you letter and the project goes of to the expensive region. Why, because it would be unreasonable to let people do ‘the expensive hard’ work and pay them cheep wage whilst ‘the easy CRUD’ work give to people who gets high salary.

So the only force which can stop the nonsense of dividing the world to cheep and expensive region is the freelance market.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 02:32:13 +0000

This is exactly the kind of inspiration I’m always looking for. Thank you.

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:06:58 +0000

I think your comment got to me more than the original post. I’ve been saying for years that the only successful contracting relationships I’ve seen are when the scope of the work is very narrow or you find a star (rare).
The article reinforced my recent realization of being in a career crisis 😉

By: Ahmed Eid

Ahmed Eid — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:25:41 +0000

Great post, really got me thinking

By: Drew Crawford

Drew Crawford — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:26:56 +0000

I think that the difference is almost entirely cultural. For example, overseas, social status is often conferred in proportion to the head count of the company that you work for. So the best and brightest and highest-paid developers are with companies like Microsoft. See, for example, the Japanese social standing of the Salarymen. Bad developers, on the other hand, end up in contracting shops. In the US, we place a much higher social value on individualism and autonomy. Working for Microsoft would be considered a mediocre job here. The best and brightest developers are contractors, consultants, or end up at small, boutique software development shops, because that grants the developer more autonomy and respect. So when someone is shopping a job to contractors, they are often comparing the very best developers that one country has to offer against the very worst that another country has to offer. When someone hires a contractor here they have the expectation that the contractor is among the highest skill relative to his peers, whereas the same job title in another country may be of the lowest skill level relative to his peers. And so a client may have much higher expectations than a foreign contractor can deliver, and sales reps know this and exploit this cultural bias to close sales.