Simplicity in a complex world

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Life used to be much simpler. It's getting complicated. Mastery of a craft is something that's next to impossible now, because everything is too complicated.

And there's little, to no, time.

Apprenticeship, the passing of a skill from a master to an apprentice is no longer practical. No apprentice has the years it takes to mastery. And most crafts are now automated.

And in that automated world, mastery is fleeting. You are an expert for a short time, because the thing that you are a master of is soon superseded by something superior.

You're obsolete before you know it.

One career in a lifetime is almost impossible. My parents had a single career. Their parents also. Our generation may have had one, most multiple.

I was trained as an architect and worked in an architectural firm at the start of my career, out of college/university. Then I worked with an engineer. Then I went back to school, learned software development and then worked at a school teaching computer programming. Then teaching computer networking skills. Finally ended up in a pension fund, working in technology, first as a developer, then a manager of the entire technical team.

How many careers are those.

And let's not forget what I'm doing now. I'm working in my dad's business, farming and real estate. But after a lifetime in technology, specifically software development, my heart is still there.

I love coding and I do it for fun. To relax and learn.

My favorite programming language happens to be a popular one. This is purely accidental since I could have opted to stay in the C/C++ world since I don't really have to work as a programmer for a living. However, Python is a fantastic general purpose scripting language. It's used for data management and AI, but it can do anything really - except really low-level stuff.

But as I was learning Python, I was losing my C++ skills. They're non-existent now. 

As I was learning Python, I was looking around for web development frameworks and ran into Django. I dislike Django a lot. But then I found a friend in Flask.

Python and Flask were built for each other and if you have a small business doing small business stuff and have a knack for computer programming, this is for you. Add a lightweight database, like SQLite and you're off to the races.

Of course, MySQL is still around for the heavier work, but for small desktop stuff, Python, Flask and SQLite are very powerful.

But there's always something new and shiny around the corner with promises of more fun, more productivity and more enjoyable to use.

I've fallen into that trap. Oh, I should learn Angular, I should learn Node.js, I should learn more JavaScript, I should learn SQLAlchemy. Oh, let me tell you about SQLAlchemy, why bother with small applications - the ones that serve only to keep me busy. It's a learning curve that's not necessary, especially if you already know SQL.

So, for the past five years, or so, I've kept my focus on learning Python and concentrating on Flask.

And I think I'm quite good. I'm no expert, of course there are people who are super experts, but I know enough.

And I'm happier to leave the rest of the stuff to the rest of the world. I don't have to go out there and build the next best thing on the planet.

I just have to write beautiful code to store beautiful data.