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A comment on The greatest juggler alive quit to open a construction business. Parent comment

Re:The greatest juggler alive quit to open a construction bu... by dmckeon on Wednesday April 30, 2014 @03:14AM (#7671985)
A performing juggler once told me (an amateur), after he showed me a technically challenging bit: There are bits you do for an audience, and there are bits you do for other jugglers. It sounds like Gatto liked the doing the technical bits more than he liked working for an audience.

Now, years later, I find that programming has a similar pattern: there is code that one writes for an audience (and that thus is more maintainable) and there is code that one writes that may show great technical skill - but that is more ... challenging to enjoy.

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Re:The greatest juggler alive quit to open a construction bu... by ghshephard on Wednesday April 30, 2014 @03:59AM (#7672102)
Interesting - I would say it's the inverse. The complex, challenging, and spectacular code that gets blasted out is for the audience (user/customer) - but the most beautiful, simple, and maintainable code can only be written by those with the greatest skill, and are mostly appreciated by other developers of likewise experience.

In a way, it's a bit like juggling - that non-flash, simple routine, which concisely and clearly expresses intent, with little room for error, may not look impressive - but other developers will recognize the raw skill that was required to create it.

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Re:The greatest juggler alive quit to open a construction bu... by LanceH on Wednesday April 30, 2014 @11:56AM (#7674164)
The boring stuff is for the mass audience in programming:

"I need that button greyed out unless the value in that box is greater than zero."

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