Working on the blogging software

April 14, 2016

Everyone warned me not to go down this road. I didn't listen.

What I've heard is that once you start working on your own blogging system, it's a rabbithole. You spend more time working on the code than you do blogging.

I think I believe it. But is that really so bad? Coding, after all, is fun. Isn't that one of the reasons we do it?

It's true that I'm spending a lot of time reinventing the wheel (and doing it badly). But I'm also implementing features that I've never seen anywhere else.

And I like those features. They work for me.

Besides, working on the Elixir book is plenty of writing. It doesn't leave me with much energy for blogging.

The big problem, of course, with "eating my own dog food" (as the saying goes) is that it only has to be palatable to (me). It is unlikely that my blog code will ever really see the light of day, because people would say, "You mean it doesn't even have feature X?"

To which I could only reply, "I didn't want feature X."

Or, "You mean it doesn't even catch this simple error condition?" To which I would have to reply, "I know not to make that error."

The first 90% of a software project is fairly easy. It's the second 90% where it starts to get painful.