As I’ve been digging deeper into this whole “Developer Experience” thing, I keep hearing the voice of a truly ridiculous Star Trek Villain in my head: Sybok, Spock’s brother from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. “Share your pain…and gain strength” was the quote with which he seemed to hypnotize his followers. Every time I’ve started a Value Stream Mapping session, or dug into the day-to-day drudgery of a development team, I pause and wonder how much I’m sounding like this strange Vulcan. And then I wonder why in the HELL I remember so much about Star Trek V! Probably because 1) Kirk beats “god” and 2) “I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!” is a pretty damn good & memorable line.

Language is a funny thing, and “pain” means a lot of different things depending on the context. In Sybok’s case, he’s doing something with people’s inner, mental pain that then makes them more compliant. When the comparison runs through my head, I have to remind myself that I’m working on external pain, or as my friend Bryan Finster calls it “toil.” “Show me where you toil, and let’s make it stop” is a pretty good tagline for DX, now that I think about it.

As I’m sure Mr. Shatner intended, I relate best to Kirk in this movie, as I need my pain as well. I have developed a keen sense for the places that need improvement in & around a developer’s life because I have been afflicted with so many of those pains myself.

Why do I become so confrontational about Proofs of Concept? Because I’ve had to “productionize” a few in my time, and it’s hell. Every 10-20 minute task put off at the start becomes a 3-5 hour one near the end.

Why do I get so crabby about people never having tested their code? Or not adding meaningful logging? Because I’ve been on production outage calls, both with and without those things, and I know which one is bearable, and which one sucks!

But, like Sybok, I actually do need people to share that pain, and gain strength from it. Lots of people toil away in really bad systems for a large part of their career and think it normal, because they haven’t seen anything else. My first position on a development team had some of the best, most forward leaning processes I have yet encountered - a bit like going straight to the promised land, and then being sent out into the desert afterwards! It may seem like a bit of brainwashing that we do in DX, as well, but I promise that I won’t be trying to use my powers of showing you a better way to develop to steal a starship and go looking for a god.