When I started this blog four years ago, I had to decide whether to publish as an anonymous coward or to use my real name. I struggled with the decision for a bit because I knew I was going to write frequently, real frequently, about dysfunctional management and institutional behaviors that I’ve both experienced and (even more so) read about over the years. In addition, since I’m a high energy, passionate animal who doesn’t hold much back and at times finds it hard to compromise, I knew that much of my content was going to be highly caustic and offensive.

Out of fear of repercussions, I decided to start writing incognito… until a dear friend brought up the perplexing issue again. After rethinking the situation, I resolved to let it all hang out. I gingerly hoisted my name up on my “About me” page.

Never say never, but I didn’t (and still don’t) care about climbing any corpo ladder or presenting the squeaky clean image that all main stream “leadership” books tout as necessary to “get ahead“. I have some hairy warts and barnacles growing on my brain and, hell, I choose to expose them.

So, if I don’t want to get ahead by movin’ on up, then WTF does BD00 want? I want to keep ruining drill bits while I blast away at the impenetrable bedrock that entombs the holy grail of effective software development. I like going deep, deep, deep down into the unexplored corners of programming (in C++, of course), design, architecture, requirements, and the squishy realm of team-based software development processes. These closely-coupled topics excite me because there seems to be no bottom, no final “truths“, no end to life-long learning in any of them. It’s what I was meant to do.

What were you meant to do?