Every programmer has a little sewer system buried beneath them. Each morning it routes digital sewage to and fro, through home built mashers and sprockets and fittings and tubes and gears. It feels good to see a brand name logo on some of these devices, a self given high-five for doing it the Right Way, but invariably there is some lopsided widget bolted to the side with the signature of self.

It's always shameful to know this little sewer exists beneath us, our livelihood, our brain babies. To think of all the twists, turns, and dead ends, unknown waterfalls and geysers yet to be filed away in bug reports, it's sobering and makes the best of us self-hating.

To peruse other's code, seeing beautiful order, a source code aira, a single author's master work in symbols... is always the shortest path to shame in our own designs. Our intimacy with our own creations magnifies our self critique.

Of course I am ashamed of my code. It's the inverse mold of the wrinkly shape my brain is, and for others to see it is the barest, weakest thing I can share. One that I am paid to every day.