This trip, spending time alone in new places, has proven its value ten times over. If you are thinking of something similar, let nothing stop you.
The fruit of all this thinking has borne a realization: I do know what I truly want to do, what I love, what I have always wanted to do more than anything else in the world.
I do not want to study philosophy in school, or be a translator, or try to write for a living. I have never wanted to be anything other than a computer programmer.
I understand why I abandoned this dream. I saw my love bent and twisted in an environment that did not care for her, and my love was such that I was willing to live in exile rather than continue to be a part of it. It is time for the exile to return home.
This letter is to let you all know, my friends in Arizona, that I will not be returning there to become a student. I was never quite sure what I would do with those years in school. Whenever I think of working again as a programmer, however, I knew exactly how I will spend the next forty years of my life.
I am going to move to the San Francisco Bay after coming home, onto a Catalina 27 in one of the marinas on the west side. That will put me close to where the work is. I will start a company to offer my services as a programmer, and also to sell my own creations. I am not sure of the name yet, but it will relate to this quality that I love in programming, and will be creating once again through coding.
I will come to Tucson the first week of September to visit and say goodbye, after teaching a class at the Belmont Bahá’í School. Perhaps we could have a party, to see my friends and say goodbye, and welcome back something I have been pining for throughout everything I’ve written.
It is funny; after knowing this, everything seemed clear again. I could only sit on a bench, in joy, for several hours, knowing again my part in life. I couldn’t sleep, either; I could only think of what I wanted to do, what I wanted to see happen. I had to convince myself to remain in Europe, in case something further comes clear.
My company will serve the ideals of programming I knew from the beginning, but compromised for the sake of commercial enterprises with a different objective. I think it is the type of programming even such enterprises truly want. As I find time, I will campaign to help them understand this. Here is the web site’s front page:
Welcome to Artisan Software. We offer consulting services in the field of software development. Our logo is the hammer[^fn1]; a hammer is a well-designed, simple tool. It does its job well enough that you don’t think about the hammer – but how you will use it. This is the nature of simple things: integrity, dependability, honesty. Think back on everything in your life you found the greatest joy in using. They all had these traits in common. This is the kind of code we write and the business that we run. Please phone or e-mail to discuss estimates. Any job is considered if it can be done well.
If people click on any of the above traits, to read their definition, they will see:
In the context of something’s being simple, integrity means that it has a single overall purpose and that every element contributes to that purpose. No part of it tries to be what it is not.
Dependability means that you always know how it will behave and what it will accomplish. It never changes what it is or what it does.
Honesty means that nothing is ever hidden or obscure or false. The description fits the behavior fits the reality. Its being is one, self-consistent… simple.
This is the life I want to live, and coding is how I want to offer it to the world. I also understand that everyone wants these things, in their soul, and so I aim to teach them, to help them see this, and to find the ways to achieve it.