Writing is thinking. Software is peoples' thoughts on repeat. Developers who can pen their thoughts clearly multiply their impact. This matters even more in group work. Common sense rules; no literature major necessary.
The one in which we design a rich Integrated Development Environment (IDE) experience, using Clojure as our muse. Featuring Language Server Protocol (lsp-mode + clojure-lsp), clojure-mode, cider, and more! Buckle up and get a coffee.
We want to maximize our ability to "stay in The Zone". So the aim is to create the fastest, smoothest, tightly integrated, and unobtrusive mechanism to get things done using the keyboard alone.
Or the one in which we confront our elisp n00bishness and try to be better at using it. And we learn new habits to understand our Emacs better. Better late than never.
Elpa, Melpa, git repo. Vendor package straight from source. It compiled? Fetch some more! Elpa, Melpa, git repo. In more adult terms, we learn to use use-package to fetch, install, initialise, configure useful packages that enhance our Emacs experience.
The first action must, of course, be to colour the bikeshed and set some decent defaults.
Or, finally biting the bullet to redesigning my developerly and writerly experience, from the ground up, with Emacs.
Making a software demo is a form of deliberate, serious play. An act that feeds our curiosity, inventiveness, and drive. It enlivens. It enriches. It entertains. And as we asymptotically approach the A.G.I. that's just around the corner, the capacity for deliberate, serious play will remain distinctively, deeply, deliciously human. Career software people like yours truly may please take note!
I've long struggled with the *Technical* Debt metaphor. It was immediately useful when I first heard it. I still think it is useful, albeit as a starting point. The more I worked with software, the more infuriatingly incomplete it started to feel. So I've reframed it as *Software* Debt, for myself. Here's what I'm thinking.