4 Mistakes I Made as a Programmer, but I Had To Become a CTO To See Them

2. My code is an art and has to be perfect

Jakub Górowski
Better Programming

Image of spilled ice cream
Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash

I was working as a programmer for over five years. It isn’t impressive since some of you probably have three times longer work experience, but I liked to think of myself as a senior developer. That sounds serious and important, doesn’t it?

One day, I got a proposition to work as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the med-tech startup. After some time in this new job role, I can look back and say, I wasn’t a senior developer. Don’t get me wrong — I still believe I have excellent knowledge about programming, especially web development — but, if that’s the case, why did I say I wasn’t a senior?

Because of these four things I have in my head now.

Sheep looking into camera
The user (?) Photo by Sam Carter on Unsplash

1. The User Is an Idiot

No, they are not.

Yes, users use the app in an unexpected, often weird, way.

Yes, users can ask questions that seem really stupid.

Yes, sometimes users demand features that seem pointless.

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Responses (59)

What are your thoughts?

About your Point 2. I work as a senior developer/architect with ca. 15 years of experience. Crucially, I’m working at a company with extremely long product life cycles. (Our flagship product is from the early Nineties!) Here is why your Point 2 is…...

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After all, programming is not art.

While all your points are ultimately spot on, I just have to disagree with you here. Programming is definitely an art. Sculptors and architects also have to stick to a budget.
Working within the confines of time, money, materials and raw talent is an art form in and of itself!

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Point 2 and Point 3 are contradicting
Why do u think refactoring, unit testing, clean code is more costly. If you can hire the right developers, they do it without additional time as that is their natural habit. If excel can't help, expecting notepad…...

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