The other day I was brooding over a project I'd started awhile back. It was an infrastructural project I couldn't just leave without the product falling apart. I hadn't put as much attention into code quality as I would've liked because the project's resources were such that I could only work on it when there was an immediate deadline.
While brooding and making a big show about how I wanted to just quit all my projects to work in some zen state of perfect code sanctity and flawless work-life balance my girlfriend chuckled sternly but compassionately that such was myth. All projects were and would always be on some level of fire. There would always be a scarcity of resources. Work would never feel the way DHH writes in his blog posts. At least it could never feel like that everyday.
Fast forward few hours later and after a long walk, I felt much better. I was actually in the code fixing things instead of brooding over how bad the quality was. Once I stopped lamenting how the code ought to be, I didn't mind the quality. I was just chipping away by making pieces of it better. Chipping away by implementing a feature that was needed. I wasn't fighting reality.
williamliao your post is an opposite take on a perfect world than my scenario. But it's still applicable. Because often we look at other people's way and think that if it doesn't match ours something's off. And something very well may be off. But the thing that's off isn't misalignment itself. It's more taking our attention off our own reality and being stuck in another's.
williamliao