Software: The Great Human Endeavor

I was having a moment of self reflection and truly thought about the essence of humanity.   Without straying into a value or ethics system or some meta-physical looney tunes land,  I have come to realize that the creation of software (besides being the quickest way to make a boat-load of money) is also one of the ultimate expressions of “being human”.

One interesting aspect of software is that it can realize an ephemeral idea into a novel useful process and at the same instance can easily be destroyed with a simple command such as this : rm -f -r {file-name} POOF! – all the ideas are gone!

It is in fact the creation and destruction duality that make this so human.

Humanity basically accomplishes two things: Creation and Destruction.

Software also exhibits a level of self determination and elitism that I must say these days does not exist in many aspects of our society.  The intelligent, fast and strong usually make the mark.  Software is stratifying – that alone is an outlier.

The balance and duality of software creation (and destruction) are not really addressed across the industry.  I recently read Coders at Work.  This is a great tome from some of the best-of-the-best in  the software industry.  The great ones interviewed in this tome continually discussed the creation and destruction aspects – as well as adapting of software.  Also they eloquently discussed getting rid of the tripe or things that did not appear worthy of creation.  Most are bothered by this duality.  Most are bothered by the extreme individualistic nature of software creation/destruction.

No one needs to tell you that you “can” create a piece of software.  Grab Eclipse or IDLE etc and go to it with your idea.  Some of the best software ever written has never been experienced outside the compiler,interpreter,browser, desktop or mobile.

Why?  Brutal Honestly –  because some deemed that most cannot deal with the results of a piece of software.  Just dont eat your own tail.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home!

@jaxsoncreole