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21 Lessons
21 Lessons

Posted on • Originally published at 21-lessons.com

The Customer and Boring Tech

The Customer and Boring Tech Sketchnote
For a long time, I really hated on Ruby on Rails. It did too many things, too much magic, not following idioms, etc.

From a developer perspective, these were all valid points. If I was to come up with a solution that’s abstracted in a better way, has less magic, then it’d be more valuable than Rails. That it probably would take longer wasn’t a concern. I was a Software Developer and it was my job to deliver well-designed and abstracted solutions.

My point of view has changed over the last years. Direct interaction with customers has taught me a lot.

The customer doesn’t really care if I used Rails, Django, Sinatra, or a custom-built web framework. It just needs to do its job.

I use Rails whenever I can to get the job done faster and more reliably, whenever I can. Technical elegance is not as important anymore as a happy and productive customer.

Top comments (1)

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Manav Misra

👩‍💼 vs passion. If the check is the 🥅...okay. But as a passionate 🧚‍♂️, hopefully we get to the point where 💰 is less important than practicing our craft, so to speak.
Or, just do that with OSS or hobby projects.