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title = "Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Intro"
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date = 2019-06-18
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["en-au", "books", "things i learnt", "intro"]
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+++
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"Things I Learnt The Hard Way (In 30 Years of Software Development)" started
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as a simple sequence of toots (the same as "tweets", on
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[Mastodon](https://functional.cafe/@juliobiason) when I was thinking about a
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new presentation I could do.
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But why "a new presentation"?
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<!-- more -->
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I go around my state with a group called
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"[Tchelinux](https://tchelinux.org/)": We usually go to universities and talk
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to people starting uni, explaining things about free/libre software and
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sometimes telling people about things they wouldn't normally see in the uni
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curriculum.
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One thing that annoys me is that there are very few presentations about "when
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things go wrong". All the presentations show prototypes or tell the good
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stuff, and hide all the wrong things that could happen[^1]. Obviously, after
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working 30 years in the field of software development, I saw my fair share of
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things going wrong -- sometimes in unimaginable piles of crap -- and I thought
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"maybe that's something people would like to hear".
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(And, to be completely honest, some of those piles of crap were my own fault.)
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And that's when the toot sequence started. Just before I noticed, I spent the
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whole day just posting this kind of stuff (fortunately, my pile of things in
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the "incoming" folder was a bit empty at the time) and it had 30 points, plus
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addenda and a few explanation points. That's when I decided to group all
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them in a single post.
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(Actually, I'm lying: Someone mentioned on Functional Café that I should make
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a blog post for making it easier to read.)
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All I thought when I grouped everything in a post was "this will make things
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easier for the people following the thread on Mastodon". But then the post
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appeared on Reddit. And Twitter. And HackerNews. And YCombinator. And none of
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those where mine.
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But here is the thing: Each point was limited by the toot size, which is 500
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characters. Sometimes that's not enough to expand the point, explain it
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properly and add some examples.
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And that's how the idea to write this "book" came to life.
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One thing you must keep in mind here: *These are my options*. I understand
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that not everything is so black and white as put here, and some people's
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experiences may not match things here. Also, you get a bit cynical about
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technology after 30 years. So... thread carefully, 'cause here be dragons.
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[^1]: Yup, I'm guilty of that too.
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{{ chapters(next_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/disclaimer", next_chapter_title="Disclaimer") }}
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