Flashes of Panic

Right, so you all know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, right?

I’m adding a new feature to the CMA of our corporate website. It’s a pretty simple widget, actually, but it’s heavier work than I’ve done on this site for a few months. I added a table to the database, and now I’m writing a platoon of PHP forms to let someone manage that table in a relatively user-friendly way. To do it properly, I need to hunker down here, lock out as many distractions as I can, and stream code into BBEdit windows as quickly as I can remember it. I have browser tabs open to the MySQL manual and the PHP manual as well as the CMA forms themselves, and I have an open SFTP connection up to the server so I can push forms up as fast as I debug them. I have my headphones on (rare, in the office) so I’m not distracted by outside noise. The office manager came in to deliver a new phone book a few minutes ago and startled me, despite my C.H.I.M.P. mirror on the monitor. It’s flow; I cut loose a lot of nonessentials and get in the process.

This is all necessary because of the two parts of the process, planning and execution. The first part, visualizing the problem and the process, is relatively low-stress. The rest of it is, I suppose, a creative act: I take this concept, which I have in my head (and perhaps in a few paper notes) and realizing it in code. If I lose the concept in my head, it will take me hours to get it back. If I get sidetracked from what I’m at, it’s not easy to get the picture back.

But while it’s happening, flowing from my head into files (and running, which is something I love about runtime languages like PHP and web development: it’s there as soon as it’s syntactically correct,) it’s a rush. It’s like being on a wave. I think about the scene, early in Cryptonomicon, where Avi Halaby is about to explain his new business plan over the phone to Randy Waterhouse, and he starts out by announcing, “I am channeling the bad shit! The power is coming down from On High. Tonight, it happens to be coming through me—you poor bastard.”

I think, if I drill down to the bottom of my graduate school motivation, it’s this: I want my entire work life to feel like that. And I want to be able to turn it on and off like a tap. (I know, not bloody likely. But I can dream, right?)

Now Playing: Fast Way from Wholesale Meats And Fish by Letters To Cleo