Commando in Code

Posted: 4 months ago (2011-10-04 06:00:23 UTC ) / Updated: 4 months ago (2011-10-04 16:30:20 UTC )

I can fix your problems. You won't particularly like it, most of the time. Often, it turns out your boss called me in, so I don't think you're supposed to. Sometimes the problem is just that nothing's done yet and we don't even have a beachhead. I love the smell of new code in the morning.

Eventually soldiers will follow me, but I'll be long gone by then. They can take the shore and continue carefully inland, establishing supply lines. Me? I'm here to blow shit up and make a mess behind enemy lines. Sure, not every inch of ground will be secured after I pass through - that's not what I do. Instead, we'll have inroads to send in a wide column who follow me. That is what I do.

Sometimes I get halfway in and everything goes to hell. I don't always win. Hell, sometimes I barely get to shore. That's why you send me - you lose me and a couple of other guys, not a platoon of 50 making the landing.

You won't be grateful to me, and I know that. I came in, did my thing, and left you with "a mess to clean up" instead of a pretty and polished result. The guys coming after me won't be good enough to finish hacking it out. My progress will get thrown away. It'll be neglected until it's replaced, and you'll remember me as sloppy and undisciplined, which I'm not. You complain that there's not a paved road ten feet wide running right where you want to go, ten minutes after I'm done. And I laugh at you.

But nobody else does my job. Nobody.