Iris Classon
Iris Classon - In Love with Code

I am not ashamed! How dare you?- From one dev to another

Poem from me, recipient anonymous.

Please listen to the poem by clicking here: [haiku url=“http://www.irisclasson.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/NotAshamedIris.m4a” graphical=“true”]

I know, that I am not there yet.
I haven’t lost, it’s not a bet.
My code is, not where I want it to be,
But behind it lies a lot of effort and sweat from me.
Proudly I stand with code in hand,
And my dreams and goals are oh so grand.
Small console applications or large distributed systems, I don’t care
I did this from zero to all, I know- I was there.

So I am not ashamed, I refuse to be
I give it all I have even though you blindly refuse to see
But how dare you, so righteously criticize my exertion
Unjustly forgetting your own travels and suggest to me desertion
Nobody made you God today,
If so many would sure like to have a say
I don’t like that religion of yours where you are above us all
With your feet so far away from the ground it is going to be a hard fall.
You preach and condemn, shaming others like we have done you something wrong
Forgetting that you once also were a soldier just like me, trying to find a place to belong

So I will never be ashamed, I will refuse to be
It would eradicate the tremendous passion I have in me
My question is, how the hell do you dare?
Do you fail to recall that you once were there?

Let me remind you….

As night turns into day
You realize you haven’t eaten, slept or been away
You don’t understand a thing. It seemed so simple, you tried it all
Somebody once showed you, told you, but you can’t recall
All around, everybody seems to know.
You feel helpless, dumb, and useless – where should I go?
Copy and paste, still can’t make it build, frustration grows
The passions slows
I just suck. I suppose.
Stackoverflow downvotes you cries for help and desperation
But you just want information
You walk away, four empty coffee cups in hand, towards the door
I should do some cleaning, I need to go to the store.
Instead you lay down in bed, often alone
(It never was just one more minute)
Feeling torn
Suddenly like a lightning has struck your mind,
The puzzles find each other and a solution you are able to find
In superman-time you are back in that chair
Bed still warm like you were still there
Fingers trebling across the keyboard heart beating out of your chest
And your mind suddenly doing what it does best
You hold your breath, watch that code compile
And as the result renders you lips break into the largest smile
You are so happy you do that dance you only do when nobody can see
It’s silly as hell something like “I am so frikkin’ awesome just watch me!”
You did what you though you couldn’t do,
All alone- just you!

I am not ashamed,
I will never be ashamed for my perseverance and dedication
I am not ashamed,
For embracing that feeling of accomplishment after forever feeling of stagnation
I will always stand proud,
for my travel knowing where I want to end up.
I will always stand proud,
Knowing nobody can’t make me stop.
And I have no idea how you dare,
But after all these words I realize I actually don’t care.
So I will dare to prove you wrong,
I am a developer, and I do belong.

Comments

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Martin Fredriksson
7/31/2012 12:57:56 AM
I suspect you are much more than a developer. Great poem. Be a heroine! 
Mark
7/31/2012 2:22:09 AM
Hey , Very nice poem.

I would never give so much energy to the person that hurt you so much, rather spend your energy 
coding, but maybe its your way of removing the negative dumped on you.

I think the "little dance" is the best part of programming, thought i was the only one that did it :)

My learning was done many years ago when the help of the internet wasn't around , the only place you found code was in magazines you bought from the bookstore 

The commas, skwigly brackets meant nothing to me i just copied them blindly. Hit compile and nothing happened and the only solution was to got thru hundreds of lines of code line by line character by character comparing what i had with what was in the magazine 

Then of course you had printing errors or staples in the page that destroyed what was printed :(

I was going to say , its a lot easier to get help now, but i guess your poem proves me wrong :( 

Just keep it up and stay far far far away from anyone who thinks they are "super awesome" because 
you will probably find that that when they are compared to some one who is good at coding , the "super awesome ones" know nothing, they are just better at copying and pasting :)

I think you have already discovered tho like me , i also run btw that coding is a lot like marathon running ,
the best moments usually occur when you are all by yourself :) suddenly that aha moment happens an you look a round and its either 03h30 or you are 30 miles from home :)

Btw when you get a chance make a trip to South Africa  and run in the Comrades 
http://www.comrades.com/ 
zadev
7/31/2012 12:17:04 PM
After I got introduced by your blog for the first time and reading the 1 year programming post I thought you were a fake marketing account created by MS to try get more women in programming. Now I see you are human. :) I really enjoy your posts but don't know where you get the constant passion and life balance for while programming even after a year since it can be such a thankless profession. 

I hope you don't get affected by cancerous coworkers too much as they and office politics are unfortunately quite common. 


Last modified on 2012-07-09

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