Write Something That Means Something

Today, I had a meaningful, valuable discussion with my manager at Twilio; a discussion that I would love to have had some time ago!

This is no reflection on her. It’s just a general feeling. You know, when you experience something that grabs you, that means something to you, you wish it had occurred sometime in the near-distant past.

Anyway, I digress.

As the conversation twisted and turned through a range of different topics, we ended up at a point where I said that while I still want to build something with code, I don’t want to build something just to build something. I want to build something if it means something, if it helps someone, if it does something of value!

If you don’t know me, this might seem like a strange thing to say. But, for the longest time – since way back in 2000 when I had a job in Sydney – I’ve had roles that, to one extent or another, involved exploratory work. For example, can Tomcat be used with Microsoft SQLServer?

I’ve (very) often been tasked with finding out whether something could be done, but not as often as I’d have liked with delivering it.

It’s something that I loved doing for years, as I was heavily inclined toward doing things for their own sake. Doing things for the beauty of learning was enough for me.

However, I feel that phase is coming to an end (or at the very least doesn’t motivates me near like it used to). These days, I want to build things that, as I said, help people, affect people, make their lives better, simpler, easier, etc. So it was, that I staked that post in the ground today.

What about you?

Is this perfectly normal for you? Do you work because you just love designing and writing code, and are not really bothered with what the code does, so long as it works? Share your thoughts in the comments.

- Matthew