It's all for humans

Ask yourself, who or what is going to use the code I'm about to write.

1. You're building a UI:
   "A human" you answer. Certainly, that's the whole point of a UI.
2. You're building a service or API:
   "Other applications / systems" you answer. Directly, yes. But who's using that application / system? "Yet another application" you answer. OK, but who's using that one? "A developer" you answer, or "The sales group", or "A website visitor". What do all these "users" have in common? All humans.
3. You are fixing a bug deep inside some nasty code:
   "This stinks, I hate fixing bugs" you answer. Well hopefully you're making the code better to help out the next human (programmer) that visits that code, not to mention the human asking for the code to be fixed. 

Software is cool, but what makes it cool is its usefulness to human beings. Without being useful to humans, it is software for software's sake which is vanity.

Post 1

Well, here it is, blog post number one. I never thought I'd have one, but I keep finding myself subjecting those I work with to tangent after tangent of barely-related thoughts that come flooding out of my brain. I also couldn't resist once I saw clayanderson.blogspot.com was available.

My name is Clay Anderson, I am a software guy who is working to become a people guy. I find software to be an incredible field. There's seldom a definitive "right" or "wrong" solution to any given problem. That is what makes software development an art more than science. However, figuring out people is an even larger problem and one that has even less "rights" and "wrongs". Every individual has different motivations and strengths. It is those differences that I find intriguing and challenging.

My goal is that the content that makes its way out of my brain and into cyberspace is useful and relevant.