Quality in Your Craft
I delivered an application today. I was very proud of this app. It took a bit longer than I wanted to deploy, but that had more to do with an unexpected server and me forgetting RHEL. What struck me though was how confident I was in it.
We have delivered a bunch of applications at EdgeCase, but this was the first one where I was back in a cubicle navigating the enterprise hallways and firewalls. Back in the land of overhearing conversations on what people are doing for lunch, and how early they hope to leave on Friday (although in all fairness, it’s the only IT organization in a 100M company I’ve seen who really ‘get it’ – more on that later).
Anyway, so it got me thinking about all the other deployments I’ve done before in large IT enterprises. I’ve never been more confident in an application. Once deployed, I had a plethora of tests that hit the application from every different angle possible. Unit spec suite, integration spec suite, and an entire harness to beat on the app from a performance standpoint. This was a fixed priced gig. Most of the things in here were not required ‘by contract’. They were done because the developers care about their craft.
I also knew that the code I was turning over was top notch. Understanding it’s the first Rails application for this company, it was nice that this is going to be a reference application for future Rails projects. The guys at EdgeCase turn over code that’s the best they can do. Not so in the IT departments of most companies.
On my way home I was catching up on some podcasts and the idea of caring for your craft struck me again. Take Geoffrey Grosenbach and the Ruby on Rails podcasts. Most of us in the Rails community take for granted the time and effort he puts into making sure the sound on them is nearly perfect. He spends countless hours and lots of money making sure our listening experience is the best it can be. And he is ONE person.
I then flip over to a podcast I was trying out from Business Week on selling – something I spend way more time doing than I care to admit. Here is a large company (I have not idea what the circulation is, but I know it’s huge). It sounded like it was recorded in a train station on a cell phone. WTF?
Big media keeps complaining about all the blogs, podcasts, and vlogs saying that there is no quality filter. When I see things like that from big media, and then listen to the Geoffrey I can’t help but think, that I hope by lowering the financial barrier of entry into media delivery, we end up with more craftsmen and less mediocrity.
Cheers Geoff, and thank you for caring.
