Its Just Code

Battling the Complexity Dragon.

Theres so many things in our world that feel like magic. You press a button, 30 minutes go by, and you are one sandwich richer and $20 poorer. Hidden behind that button press are layers upon layers of complexity: frameworks, servers, networking, databases, etc. A single button! If that button requires all that complexity how does anything get built?

Its all so darn complicated and magical and built by the really smart people who have spent 50 years working on this one piece of technology and if a button requires all this then there’s no way that I, a half educated buffoon, could ever make something cool and unique and useful!

Does this sound familiar?

I’ve spent 10 years coding trying to battle this dragon of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Get a cool idea, get really excited about it and start dreaming all the things it can do and how everyone will love it, but then you find yourself crushed when facing the reality that even basic tasks require so much complexity. Paralyzed in anxiety, a fire alarm going off from overwhelming self-doubt, nothing is written.

I cant write this it’s too complex. I don’t even know OpenGl or Rust or Linux or React or the Go runtime or the many dozens of tools I’m forced to use at work that barely function and I cant fix when they break.

But I do know how to read and write code.

And all these things are, for the most part, just code.

This was, and still is, the sword that has helped me battle the dragon of complexity. It’s all just code. Was it complex? Yes of course. But I was something that I can tackle.

I can go read the code of the work tools. I can go read the code of the Go runtime. I can read all of these big complex projects and start to build a real understanding of how they work. Not the surface level, hope it’s in the docs or some helpful stackoverflow, understanding. A real understanding of how these things are actually doing things.

I’m still struggling with these thoughts, but the tide is turning. Everyday I learn more and more. The doubt, uncertainty, and fear are slowly fading away (along with the anxiety they caused).

It’s just code. I can read it. I can conquer it. So can you.

I am writing these thoughts as a once through with minimal proof writing as they come to mind. If you enjoyed this or found it useful please share the content with others.