At the moment, I'm writing business applications for a living. I do some Linux administration and network stuff at my job, but I'm here to write software. The type of software that the average company needs can be boring to write. There is a lot of database work - data goes into the system, reports come out. I sometimes work on frameworks that larger things will sit on top of and this takes a little more skill and brain activity. However, much of the code just fiddles with data and encapsulates/applies business rules.

There are two things that keep it a little interesting. and people who don't care about these two things cause me pain. First, I try hard to keeping the code lean (the less there is, the easier it is to understand) and well organized. Someday someone else will inherit the applications that I've created and they shouldn't have to curse me and the woman who birthed me. While you are plugging that hole with a stupid hack that will never make sense to anyone - take a minute to walk over to my desk and stick a pencil through my hand. At least it will distract me and maybe I won't give myself an ulcer thinking about what you've just done.

Secondly, good user interfaces are hard to write but it is still worth spending time on them. Some poor person will have to use your application every day or every week. Why make their life difficult when you don't have to? I wish plagues of locusts on any programmer that ever wrote a terrible user interface. When people curse their machines and bitch about their software in the lunch room - know that you contributed to their misery with your torture chamber of a user interface.

I'm stopping because my face feels hot and it is lunch time.