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       The Joy of Simple
       March 28th, 2020
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       I think the difficult part of staying a software developer is that
       things change just as they get comfortable. When I first tried
       programming as a profession, C was my weapon of choice. I could
       keep the C language pretty much in my head along with a few
       common library calls like read, write, close, and so on.
       
       Then along came C++ and I had to have a book with me to reference
       standard library calls.  The STL meant I had to use an IDE or at
       least carry a decent sized reference around.  How do I set an
       IOStream to output base-16 instead of decimal numbers?  Even so,
       some parts of the STL stick in your head so I could keep most
       of the language and most of the more useful parts of STL in
       my head (mostly).  The compiler would tell me if I got it wrong.
       
       Then came Java.  Without an IDE, Stack Overflow, and lots of
       online Java and JEE/Spring documentation, you are largely lost.
       There's probably something that does what you want to do with
       a few lines of configuration but you have 1) find it, 2)
       figure out what the configuration settings might be, and 3) dig
       through Stack Overflow if your use case isn't that common or
       4) dig through the source code to figure it out.
       
       Now there isn't just a Java program.  Now, the configuration
       and infrastructure are configured at the same time.  You
       specify how to deploy your code and how it interacts with other
       containers.  Just a few more things to think about....
       
       Frankly, it stresses me out.  I need to kick back with something
       that brings me joy for my effort.  I need to get back to plain
       old C and the good old Unix APIs.  People have done incredible
       things with those tools.  Armed with little more than C and
       emacs, most of the web infrastructure was built.  The cloud is
       built on higher level languages like Go, Java or C#, but the
       bones are in C.
       
       Not everything is perfect.  If I had to write a web-based
       order management system, C would not be my first choice.  It
       would take me much more code to accomplish what I can do in
       a few lines of Node.  But on my own time, and focused on my
       own projects, it's my mental Xanax.
             
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