Don’t code in anger, man

I’m sorry. I knew it would come to this as soon as I started. But I didn’t care. In my blind rage from having to deal with one of the crappiest off-the-shelf products I’ve ever used, I started slinging code to replace it. Actually, not even to replace it, but just to prove I could build a better system for my needs.

I started building a simple CMS platform with ASP.NET MVC and began blogging about it (refer to the build-your-own-cms tag for the posts). These posts quickly became some of the most popular ones on my blog. Everything was great, and I was actually churning out a product that was accomplishing my goals (truth be told, it was really quick & dirty and needs a lot of work to become anything).

The problem was that I hated it.

I don’t particularly give a damn about managing website content. Sure it’s an interesting challenge and one that may stare me in the face again. But right now I couldn’t care less. A year ago when I was hell-bent on completing this CMS platform of mine, I thought I cared. But I was only coding out of frustration. Eight, nine, ten hour days at work plugging leaks and duct-taping the software I had to support led me coming home just to boot up my pc to code my own system for several hours more a night.

I wasn’t coding for work. And I sure wasn’t coding for fun. I was coding out of anger and frustration with some perverse idea that if I completed my mission it would somehow make me victorious. Whatever.

But then a miraculous thing happened. I got a new job and didn’t have to support a CMS ever again. My interest in my project dropped to zero. I haven’t written a line of code for it since then.

I knew this was going to happen.

If you’ve been waiting for follow-up posts on my CMS series, I’m sorry to say that you may have to wait a while. While I certainly may have learned a thing and honed my skills during the process, it was largely a waste of time and energy. And then I went and blogged about it and let the three (two?) people down who were eagerly awaiting additional posts. Sorry, guys. I’ve learned my lesson.

Don’t code in anger, man.