Re-approaching shitty software I’ve made is like looking at photos of me with braces and listening to Blink 182 – NO THANKS, DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS, NOPE. I’ve prided myself on keeping my focus on the present and future, not the past. I learned, though, that sometimes I need to take a quick look around so not to lose something I’ve worked hard on.
I think about this now because it’s been about six months since I finished my Masters and I have not had the time to go back to my software and improve upon it. I’m not saying that it is shitty, but it was made in a 3-month period. Also, about 1/4-1/2 of my attention was paid to watching all of Battlestar Galactica and X-Files on Netflix.
My goal for this week is to break open that code and come up with a game plan for feature additions and improvements. I hope to have it ready for deployment within my department for a beta run during one of our Summer 2013 semester sessions. See, now that I’ve said this publicly I must follow through or else all of you will run me out of this town and onto an island inhabited solely by orthodontists and Tom DeLonge.
Do any of you have projects “in the vault” that you want to get back to, but fear seeing a snapshot of your past (or poor code formatting) and dying of embarrassment?
Oh, and on a totally related note, I did some investigative journalism and Twinkie consumption for Baristanet last week.
My name is 
Yeah, that whole “I said I will do it on my blog so now I have to do it” doesn’t work. Tried that many times and by now I’m immune. People are like “what about part two of that fan day thing” and I’m like “oh, totally typing that up right now and shit”… Meanwhile I’m playing video games and writing other posts. :P
Also, that thing about old embarrassing code – yeah, daily at work. I’m like – whose the asshole who wrote this. Then I realize it was young me who did it. Then I realize I should refactor. Then I realize shit is in production and also I have more urgent stuff to do. So half the time it stays the way it was. :P
Oh, blog-shaming myself always works. It was the biggest motivation for finishing the Masters hahaha.
Regarding old embarassing code, I found this when I was adding my make8bitart.com source to Github: https://twitter.com/jennschiffer/status/271428604594905088/photo/1
Not that it’s embarassing. Just hilarious. #lilkim