Life of Software of Engineer

[vijayrmca]

I knew way back in high school that I was going to end up being a software engineer. I had a pretty good aptitude for computers and I enjoyed playing around in Pascal and learning C++. I was pretty far ahead of a lot of people in my early programming classes, although WAY behind my really smart friends.
When it came time to start picking colleges it was getting a little rough. My grades in school were not what they should have been. And it was my own fault. But it was starting to limit my choices of where I thought I could go. It came down to going to a state school in another state for Creative Writing, or going to the Rochester Institute of Technology to study Computer Science. Thankfully I got in to RIT.
So what's the point of all this? I love being a software engineer. Designing architectures, learning new technologies, writing code. I enjoy every part of what being a software guy is all about. I know inside that software is what I was meant to do. There is however a down side.
When your job is something that you really enjoy doing you get passionate about it. You have emotional responses to things relating to your job. It can make you a great engineer but it can also cause conflict. My current work environment isn't the best. Whose is right? But one of the things that is currently making it less than perfect is the "Its just a job" syndrome.
Now there is a certain truth to that statement. At the end of the day there are things much more important than your job. Your friends, your family, those green things outside that we pass on our way from our cars to the office. All more important than the job. But there's a point at which "Its just a job" becomes a defense of being sloppy, or being apathetic to a problem occurring around you.
I'm currently working on a multi-team project. Its rough going, partially because we don't have the strongest leadership guiding us to a common goal. So each team wants to do things a little bit differently. Its natural, its going to happen, but to make the best system possible we need to come to an agreement that lets each team produce the best possible software. I'm one of those people that likes to push that issue, making the software be the best it can be. So it can serve as many people as possible and have the longest shelf-life it can.
The "its just a job" people however don't think its worth trying to come together on the issue. They would rather have each piece suffer rather than go through what is likely to be a difficult process of compromise.
I know that no software is ever going to be perfect. And there are times that hard decisions have to be made that make an API less optimal than we would like. But at the end of the day if you're not at the very least STRIVING to make the best software you can, then you probably should look at why you're making software at all.
Rant over, I feel much better now. :)

[AjayKumar.Kataram]

nice