Having Some Fucking Fun

January 05, 2025

A day in a software engineer’s week becomes blurry from one another. It is not uncommon to get caught up in the rut of things. Today happens to be one of those slow Sunday mornings at the end of a busy week. I have a lot of reading to catch up on, but I just cannot concentrate on any of it.

Sure, I do many things at my job that I have grown to love (the yellows) – writing about software, designing systems, technical leadership, planning… But all of the things I have grown to love have their roots somehow to the crux of what I truly enjoy doing (the greens): writing code – for no reason, for no outcome, for no one – just me building something where there was nothing.

On good weeks, the yellows often become greens, and the reds start looking like yellows. I know I am having a bad day when the yellows start resembling the reds. As I grow older, I start recognising – and thereby paying homage – to the few constants I can rely on on a cold slow Sunday – the never-changing greens.

In the show, Ted Lasso, football is to the players, what software engineering is to me – I do it because I enjoy it. In all honesty though, I would be lying if I said I love every bit of it.

During my career, when I was going through a bad patch, I’d come back here and play.

I brought you here to remind you that football is a fucking game that you used to play as a fucking kid because it was fun. Even when you were getting your fucking legs broken or your fucking feelings hurt. So fuck your feelings, fuck your overthinking, fuck all that bullshit. Go back out there and have some fucking fun.

– Roy Kent (Ted Lasso)

For me, having fun means going back to writing code – leaving all the rest aside. To that end, today I wrote a load-shedding server using Spring Boot.

For anyone who needs this: If you are in a rut, find your never-changing greens, go back out there and have some fucking fun.