First
The title says it all. This post is the equivalent of planting a flag pole in virgin land. The first to comment. The first commit.
This simple word means so many things. When used as a comment just about anywhere, it is about as obnoxious as carving “I wuz here” into an old growth tree. But in a different context it also marks the beginning of a journey. The first steps of something that may end up changing the world 🗺 or at least our perception of it 🌎. Or it may just mark yet another spark that never took hold.
As a software engineer I find the first commit to be invigorating but also daunting. The slate is clean. Nothing existed before this point and everything that comes after will be built on top of it. If you are an optimistic person with delusions of grandeur (which you probably should be if you working at or otherwise thinking of jumping into bed with a startup) then the first commit represents the birth of the universe. And if you are as efficient as ___ (fill in with the name of the God of your choice) then over the next 6 days you will lay the foundation upon which a new beautiful future will be built. The code will be clean, intuitive, well documented, beautiful to read, and tested… years from now engineers will marvel at your skill and praise your name.
Sorry but no. That isn’t how this is going to play out.
Future engineers (yourself included) will curse your name, ridicule the code you wrote, and do their best to mask the origins of everything that came before. On rare occasions, probably after popping an Adderall, they might grudgingly admit that what you wrote makes a certain amount of sense, but only after ripping it apart and rewriting it themselves.
Just assume that everything you do after the first commit will probably be shit. In some future post I will try to explain why this is the case but for now acknowledge this fact and move on.
The takeaway from this is simple:
Maintain the purity of the first commit.
Marvel at the possibilities it suggests. And remember that if you do it right, this is the only time that your code won’t stink.
