I don’t belong in tech

This was great, and well written. As the phenomenon of software and technology expands to encompass all of human activity (and thus all humans), it's also going to bring in diverse mindsets, experiences and approaches.

This is a good thing.

When I was young, tech really only existed in the hearts and minds of a very small, self-selected, few. Most of us had similar or common viewpoints and experiences. It was very easy to go someplace new, find the local group of nerds, exchange a few Star Trek quotes to prove your bona fides, and you'd be in.

But we, and the technology that came from us, was limited to what we could produce given the limited set of experiences and modes of thinking we brought to the table. But we also couldn't see this limitation, because our work was a reflection of all that we could think.

What's happened in the intervening decades is that our technology, the kind that we literally grew up imagineering, while important, has become a minority of what humanity needs technology to do for it.

Even today, the fact that somebody from a non-tech background can go take classes to learn to code, and make a successful business, or have a successful career with that knowledge feels vaguely alien to those of us from the early years.

I've come to the conclusion that the notions I had as a child about what technology was and how it was in my blood, were incredibly wrong. The world of technology is immense - bigger than just software, or hardware. Writing is technology, cheese is technology, sewing is technology... As this enlightenment continues to unroll in my mind, I'm not even sure I know how to latch a definition onto the word that doesn't ring hollow, but it seems vaguely associated with anything that uses our minds to make the human condition better.

The author above, she does belong in technology, it's our insistence on trying to limit the meaning of tech to the kind of tiny world I grew up in, that has convinced her that she doesn't belong. Yes, she doesn't belong in that microcosm of early tech. She belongs in the macrocosm of human betterment.

I'm not sure about that - designers have to build a UX that works in the real world, and sometimes there are really complicated processes that need to be exposed in a nice way. I imagine this has similar tradeoffs as programming (i.e. difficulty in implementation, balancing power/intuitiveness)

Legacy codebases make money. The engineer anxiety about them is myopic and ignorant of business realities.

If you can code something quickly and well enough that it doesn't immediately collapse under its own weight, you have succeeded. The fact that a codebase has existed long enough to become "legacy" means it did a good enough job to stay alive.

I'll have to disagree. I used to be a carpenter and the objective is definitely not to be perfect. Building anything, houses or apps, the objective is to work within tolerances. The modern system of 2x4 framing and drywall allows those tolerances to be very loose without affecting the end product, but I digress. Would you prefer a half-finished house with perfectly cut studs (that you can't see inside the drywall), or a completed house that has looser tolerances but has passed inspection?

Even in those fields that people imagine involve a lot of perfection, like watercolors or fine Japanese carpentry, the perfection is not arrived at by agonizing over details and overworking the piece. The perfection comes from the muscle memory of someone who has done it many times. App development should be the same way.

This economy of effort is intrinsic to any craft and is part of being a good craftsperson. I used to have an attitude similar to the author, a mixture of derision and envy towards those who were able to ship. She needs to learn that if she does not abandon this counterproductive mental handicap, she will never be a good craftsperson, in software or anything else.

The article author spends numerous paragraphs establishing her identify to the reader as a womain in tech before explaining that this isn't the issue she has with tech. The comment author has merely done the same?