2024-05-02                         from the editor of ~insom
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   Noticing a habit I have: when I am not being innately
   productive as a programmer I do infrastructure. If I am
   feeling sick or unmotivated, I'll set up CI, rebuild a
   server, configure Traefik -- just general futzing with the
   artifacts of software. This is an okay failure state: in
   many cases these things need to get done. But I've noticed
   then when I am being a productive developer, all of those
   things go by the wayside.

   I racked a new server in the basement a couple of weeks ago
   and I got half way through setting it up but then I started
   really kind of "getting" Rust, and so I have stayed with
   programming and let the ops stuff slip. I think, deep down,
   I know I can always come back to ops with any energy level,
   but having the right combination of motivation and time and
   practice to actually improve at programming requires me to
   put programming first.

   That's all: no big point here, just some pattern I noticed
   about myself, while I am currently setting my own schedule.
   When you're working for other people it's harder to notice
   these things: because you can always say "this needs doing
   now to unblock person X or feature Y" but I think -- looking
   back -- I've always had this pendulum between ops and
   software development and I lied to myself a little about why
   I was prioritising one or the other.