I build backend systems and developer tooling that create leverage.
Professionally: backend systems, cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and developer tooling. Personally: an application developer who enjoys building leverage.
I still enjoy dropping into unfamiliar codebases, building small studies in miniature, and leaving systems a little easier to work in than I found them.
Currently building:
Seevee: an agent-driven resume workbench that treats a career as a conversation instead of a document.
Timerbox: a cross-platform Gio desktop timer inspired by the workflow I've relied on for years.
That is the usual work of high end programmers, right? Growing codebases as consistent, dependable ontologies?
I feel like most mainstream programming languages do this sort of work for their standard libraries and their official docs. Go and Python come to mind, but plenty others do this reasonably well to the point where one mostly doesn’t need to read the implementation code to effectively use the standard library itself.
Example: “skin” has multiple sounds to help decipher the word as spelled: “sss”, “sk”, “ih”, “nnn”, “iinn”.
Identifying some of those sounds in order helps a reader to sound out the word “skin”. After doing this a few times in a context that helps the reader confirm the meaning of the word they’ve just sounded out they’ll learn it outright.
From that point forward they can recognize “skin” on sight without requiring any context.
An uncomfortable thing about skill, taste, and experience is that it’s often easier to demonstrate the superiority of one path over another than it is to explain the differences in a way the audience is prepared to absorb.
I imagine this is a large part of why tooling and language wars are still compelling throughout decades of computing. No amount of lecturing on the joy of e.g. Rails vs. Node will really convince anyone to use an “outdated”, slow, dynamically typed language like Ruby in 2025 — even in places where it’d be a major win.
If ADHD-oriented media and discussions provide neurodivergent adults a means to work through decades of internalized shame and anxiety, why get in the way of that?
There may never be a perfect taxonomy of programmer archetypes.
I imagine most of us here can agree that some elevate the craft and ritual to great effect while others avoid such high-minded conceits in favor of shipping whatever hits the expected target this week.
I’ve been both at different points in my career. Usually it’s a response to my environment.
Reminds me of using Ruby ten years ago and having to contend with folks who wanted to default to using the string literal style over another because it was known to be more performant at scale. That awkward stuff surfaces earlier with some languages than with others.
The deadpan was so good there I had to stop and double check the origins of Markdown just to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. Hard to believe it’s been twenty years!
Professionally: backend systems, cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and developer tooling. Personally: an application developer who enjoys building leverage.
I still enjoy dropping into unfamiliar codebases, building small studies in miniature, and leaving systems a little easier to work in than I found them.
Currently building:
Seevee: an agent-driven resume workbench that treats a career as a conversation instead of a document.
Timerbox: a cross-platform Gio desktop timer inspired by the workflow I've relied on for years.
Blog: dpritchett.net
GitHub: github.com/dpritchett
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danielpritchett
Email: [email protected]