Learn Kung Fu

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Monday, November 30th, 2009

For a moment, I’d like to you remember what you can about The Matrix. Now, only think about the first film, and not the other two, as if you’re anything like me, you’ve spent considerable time and effort to suppress the memories of those even existing, and I’d hate for you to undo that hard work.

Why mention the Matrix? Because eventually there comes a point in the life of every developer where they must make a choice: red pill, or blue pill.

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. – Morpheus

In the film, Neo takes the red pill, and is freed from the clutches of the Matrix. He learns how to enter and exit the Matrix at will, and essentially gains superpowers. Neo is able to move fast enough to dodge bullets, fly, and have incredible strength, all because he has learned how to fully take advantage of the environment that he’s in.

In development though, what are our equivalents of the red pill vs. blue pill? It’s the difference between simply getting something done, and getting it done more efficiently. As developers, we need to learn how to fully manipulate and control our environments and development tools, so that we can be as efficient and as powerful as we can when writing our applications.
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