johnmaconline

We have a Holy war in the software development world.

Ours is an ancient topic invoking the same intense emotions as the debates around abortion, vaccinations, and crypto. Developers line up on either side, sling mud, and lose their shit over this topic like we’re all a bunch of toddlers fighting over the yellow dump truck. 

This Holy War is tabs versus spaces for indentation in a source code file. 

On the one hand, it’s as silly as you think. We’re throwing tantrums over whether the tab key will insert a “tab character” (ASCII character 9) or the appropriate number of “space characters” (ASCII character 32) into the file. 

When you look at the file, the outcome looks the same.

But under the covers, it’s way more nuanced. Some languages require tabs specifically. Some editors work better with spaces. Some are agnostic.

As a new engineer, I started out as a tabs guy. Why? Because the person who showed me the ropes was a tabs guy. But now I’m a spaces guy. Once I had built up my own profile of experience, I saw the light. 

So for the tabs people, I’m an apostate. Actually, worse. I’m a fallen angel, a backslider. Or, rather, I’ve carelessly thrown it away. A special place in hell awaits me. But I’m convinced I’m right. 

Here’s the thing about holy wars — no matter what side you’re on, you are always right. Until you switch sides. Then you’re right again.

I had no idea how to respond.

At 22, I didn’t have the experience or skills even to know what to think, let alone what to say. 

So I just mumbled, “Uh, what?” with a blinking stare on my face.

“I’m not going to teach you how to do what I do. You can tell Charlie that. This is what I do. If I teach you, then what am I going to do? They’ll just lay me off.”

So I walked away.  

I didn’t know what to do. I was too afraid to tell Charlie, so later that day, I mentioned it to my friend Jim. He said, “Yeah, I thought that might happen. Don’t worry, you and I will figure it out together.”

So that’s what we did, and it only took about a day of poking around and figuring stuff out.

Sure enough, the company had some layoffs a year later, and Bill was on that list. The very thing he was trying to avoid became a reality, and it had little to do with his skill set or how good he was at his job.  

Professional organizations need grease, not roadblocks. True for humans and true for robots.

I guess people have always been worried about protecting their jobs. It seems like a natural worry.

But we’re wrong to think that not teaching someone else to do our job or help us with ours is the way to protect it.

At 22 and fresh out of college with a degree in Electrical Engineering, I started working at a large defense contractor building satellites. I showed up a shy and unconfident version of myself.

My team ensured the satellites that we built would survive both natural and man-made radiation in space — nuclear survivability. Fancy, right?

My manager Charlie paired me with a few guys, Jim, Tom, and Rob, who helped me get comfortable, figure out what working and contributing in corporate America looks like, and helped me with all of my newbie technical questions.

A few weeks in, I was already growing.

And then, I hit my first roadblock. Charlie asked me to see Bill and ask him to teach me how he does his particular type of modeling. He was overloaded and could use some help.

So there I went — bouncing over to Bill’s desk like an enthusiastic puppy. I mentioned that Charlie had sent me over to learn how he does his modeling and asked when he had some time to show me.

After a pregnant pause, a slow turn in his chair, and a condescending stare down his nose over his glasses, he answered, “Not gonna happen.”

Uh, now what?

He flashed it, looked at us, put his shirt back over it, and kept right on moving past us.

Now I don’t know what to do except quickly deposit the trash and get back to our group as fast as possible. But once we were amongst the group, the whisper shouting started.

“What?! Should we leave? Are we ok?” And so on.

As one of the adults, I figured I should have some answers, but I didn’t. In my context, guns commanded safety rituals and pomp and circumstance. Nobody walks around with one in a waistband. I was knocked off kilter.

Luckily, my adult partner was our local expert and had spent a lot of time in this neighborhood fixing other people’s homes. He gathered us on the front porch.

“OK, let’s calm down. We shouldn’t have anything to worry about. 

Think about what y’all look like to him. He has no idea who we are, but he knows we’re not from here. We’re running around, making a commotion, laughing, singing, and walking all over the place. We got a dumpster out front and trucks with new stuff stopping by and unloading.

This is just his way of showing us that regardless of who we are, he’s prepared. And we should know that.

So let’s be a little more respectful of his space and try to put him at ease.”

Context forms the lens through which we see the world, and personal experience shapes that context. 

Tuesday was the day we saw the gun.

It was our second day of work at Mrs. Williams’s house, and we’re sitting in the marginal shade between the houses, leaning up against the chainlink fence, eating our lunch. The shade provides so little relief, but it’s oh, so important. The July sun in Richmond is unrelenting.

The only thing that comes in second to the workcamp shower is the workcamp sandwich. You get either a sparse ham and cheese or a squishy peanut butter and jelly on smooshed white bread. But it’s the best sandwich you’ve ever, or ever will, until the one you have the next day. By lunchtime, you’re so hungry that you’re eyeing up the giant cockroaches.

Our group of teenagers and adults numbers about ten, and at mid-day on Tuesday, we’re still a cheery and energetic group — breaking into song, laughing, and generally enjoying being together and working.

We were also outsiders, loud, noticeable, and, unfortunately, completely unaware. That was about to change.

One of the girls and I grabbed the lunch trash and headed for the dumpster out front. Coming towards us, on his side of the fence, is Mrs. Williams’s neighbor. A guy, probably around 30, staring right at us as we converge. I open my mouth to say “Hi,” but before I get it out, he tugs the front of T-shirt up just far enough to reveal it.

The handle sticking out of the waistband of his shorts.

I’ve just met Mrs. Williams, and I’ll forever be a better human because of it.

On this particular occasion in Richmond, our job is to replace the floor in her kitchen. I mean, it’s a complete disaster.

The old wood-fired pot belly stove (yup, you read that right) leans to the left because of the rotted floorboards. That lean creates a visible disconnect between the stove and the chimney.

I wonder what the air in this kitchen is like when she fires up the stove. Does she even fire up the stove? Of course, she does. It’s THE stove.

You can’t get to the sink without straddling the 18-inch hole in front of it. Over to the left, daylight shines through a breach in the wall. Look a little harder, and you see the telltale signs of the plethora of critters that also call this structure their home. At first, I’m disillusioned about the breach. But then, I thank God for that breach because the smell is overwhelming.

Mrs. Williams is 82 with a perpetual smile on her face. She’s your grandmother. She’s my grandmother. She’s everyone’s grandmother.

She flits about as we work on her floor throughout the week, always smiling. She moves pretty good for her age, but still, I have no idea how she gets to that sink. Maybe she doesn’t.

She and Mr. Williams moved into this house, a parsonage, a billion years ago when Mr. Williams became the pastor of the nearby Church. Mr. Williams died almost 10 years ago, but Mrs. Williams is like a freight train.

She continues to feed the hungry, smile at the sad, and hug those who need love. The front porch supports a constant stream of people who need what Mrs. Williams provides. Unfortunately, that porch is straining under the heaviness.

She’s kept on keeping on. But now, her house is crumbling like the neighborhood around her.

What were some of the best times of your life?

Were they travel adventures? Romance? Successes? The birth of children?

Do any of those best times involve layers of sweat and grime, cold showers, and sleeping on hard floors in a community room with 25 other people?

Mine do.

Each summer, our Church sent a group of teenagers and adults to various communities to do mission work for a week. Our mission was to repair, rebuild, and otherwise make safe the homes of people who could not afford to pay.

For those weeks, we slept in sleeping bags on the floor of some generous host Church. We ate whatever was graciously provided by local organizations. We showered sparsely and often in cold water.

These were some of the best weeks of my life.

At the end of each day, I was hot, grimy, and spent. The evening shower was always the best shower I’d ever had. And laying my head on that pillow on the hard floor produced sound and restful sleep. Satisfaction to the very depths of my soul.

This trip to Richmond in the late 90s was my first taste. The very first time I was fortunate enough to accompany this group of people just trying to make some difference, if even just a small one, in another’s life.

I gained so much perspective on these trips about so many things, but I could never have predicted the perspective-altering moment of seeing that gun out of context.

The first time I saw a gun out of context was in the inner city of Richmond, Virginia, with a bunch of teenagers from our Church.

I grew up in a hunting family. We had guns.

Not pistols, but long guns — rifles and shotguns. The kind legitimately used for hunting and practice (skeet, target, etc). My dad diligently taught my brother and me to respect and safely use, handle, care for, transport, and store guns. Safety was king.

We treated the gun respectfully, not only in our family but also in our hunting community. At hunting camp, we had a moment — the moment everyone unveiled the guns. It always occurred directly before we set out into the field or woods. Not too soon, and never were guns sitting around. Upon return, each person immediately secured their gun.

This system of operation around guns provided my context for what they are, how to use them, and how to handle them.

Which brings me to Richmond in the late 90s and how my context surrounding guns completely blew up.

I still cringe when I think of that moment. 

Briefly, the same feelings of shame, embarrassment, and utter unworthiness flash through me like a lightning bolt. I can feel it like it was yesterday, but it happened more than forty years ago.

The entire middle school experience, starting with the locker incident, built my wall of negative self-talk brick-by-brick, stacking one embarrassing moment on top of another. You can probably find yourself in some of these other moments.

My assigned square dancing partner in middle school gym class (yes, square dancing in gym class) looked at me with disgust and then asked the teacher for a new partner.

Getting rejected by someone that I asked to a dance specifically because her friend told me she’d say “yes.” It was really just a plot to make fun of me.  

Being greeted by a table of “big guys” laughing at me in the lunch room because one of them had struck me out the prior evening. 

Those bricks built up the wall that became my inner monologue of unworthiness. But that inner monologue is just a story, or rather, a collection of stories. I probably don’t even remember the facts correctly. I may have fabricated or conflated entire episodes. However, I remember the feelings. And that’s what our stories are about — feelings.

Whether our story is filled with facts or fabrications, we always bring that inner monologue with us no matter how, where, or with whom we show up in the world.

There it was. My locker.

All was lost.

Our hall lockers came in pairs, each pair consisting of a tall, skinny bottom part and a rectangular top part. My locker was the one on top, and I couldn’t reach it.

Even though the school, my peers, and the universe now recognized my status as a teenager, my body did not. I was still the smallest kid in the class, as I had been since 4th grade.

I knew this was a possibility, of course. I dreaded this outcome the entire bus ride to school and throughout the pre-locker homeroom activities. I had a 50/50 shot, and I lost.

This wasn’t going to work, and I had to tell the teacher. For a split second, I thought, “Maybe nobody will notice.” Already a shy, unsure, and self-conscious kid, I was terrified, but I did it.

And that’s when the nightmare became a reality.

The teacher called over my locker partner, a girl, and said we were to switch places because I couldn’t reach mine. She giggled a bit, the teacher giggled a bit, and within 1.4 seconds, the entire class knew my shame.

I had to switch lockers because I was too short. I was not worthy of the gifts bestowed upon a teenager with a locker. My talisman was a cheap piece of costume jewelry. It had no power.

I wasn’t a teenager. I was still a baby. Where was my cubby?