Saturday 12 May 2012

Pantsfree Programming

A good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) has a great expression: "Pantsfree programming."

It took me a little while to figure out what he meant.

Pants


You see, I spent a lot of time in England where "pants" can be used as a mild swear word.  A bit like how the Americans would say "*!*?", or perhaps "!?*!".

Eventually I figured out he meant "Programming without trousers."

But why do we all need trousers to program a computer? What catastrophe would befall us if we were to take them off?  I was so confused.

But working through it a little more, I finally figured out he meant "Programming without shame."

Fearless


It's the programming you do when you don't care what anyone else thinks.  It's fearless programming.  It's liberating. It's the programming you do when the journey is everything, and the destination is almost a distraction.  There's no intention to finish, and you never need to show your working or your results.

But there's a reason you're using your trouser-free time for programming rather than playing video games.

I think we all need a little bit of "Pantsfree programming" in our lives.  And maybe we could all make use of some of those principles in other parts of our lives too.

If you're "Pantsfree" right now, please leave a comment!

1 comment:

  1. Your lovely wife would like to remind you there are more activities besides programming and playing video games that also benefit from being pantsfree :x

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