Lazy? I’m not lazy, I’m efficient.
The saying goes, according to Larry Wall, the original author of the Perl programming language, there are three great virtues of a programmer; Laziness, Impatience and Hubris.
I, unfortunately, believe these are actually 3 great Christian shortcomings, which I happen to have. Though I make due to take advantage of them, as they actually help me out sometimes when they are wrapped up with a touch of grace.
Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it.
To me, lazy might mean looking up the exact theme someone might reference on another website (when I’m asked to do a redesign). I mean, the customer is always right. Right? In which case, there is little use to re-inventing the wheel.
Impatience: The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to.
Impatience is something that can affect many levels of development, which is probably why Lorem Ipsum text filler was even invented. Just saying.
Hubris: The quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad things about.
For me, hubris usually means patching broken or forgotten things that most people no longer see as useful. The downside, I’m usually the only person patching the problem.
