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Adam Jacob, Building Chef, and the Search for Self in Software (corecursive.com)
3 points by adamgordonbell on Sept 4, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



Podcast host here. Adam's story about having meetings where you are fighting about API design and it not really being about API design but about wanting to assert yourself really hit home for me:

   The odds that today is the day that you’re making the singular make or break decision for the next 10 years of your work, pretty fucking unlikely.

    But boy, you’d argue about it like you were. You’d fight about it.

    It really was every argument was about gnawing your arm off about whether or not you were who you said you were. Everything is vitally important all the time. And if any of it’s wrong or fails, then the whole thing falls apart, and now suddenly you’re a fraud. You’ve let everyone you know and love down. That’s a lot to carry around with you to work every day. If that API shape wasn’t right, the whole fucking thing falls apart.Because again, riding on it was not just that API call, it was my identity.

    If it failed and fell apart, what did that say about me as a person? Does that mean I’m a bad person? Does it mean I never belonged here? Does it mean that everything I’ve been saying about who I am and what I want and what I can do, were those all lies?

    It was lot of pressure on what is essentially should it be RESTful or RPC over JSON? And who fucking cares? Who fucking cares?
So many good insights and stories.

Let me know what you think!




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