Code is like Wine

No, you don’t need to decant it… as someone suggested me, and it’s not about ageing either. It’s more about how it’s made, and those that make it.

Just like pretty much everything on in this world you can have it cheap, you can have it great and all the possible shades in between. The difference: that’s pretty much up to you. What’re you looking for and what are you expectations about it.

Someone might buy a bottle of wine just to get drunk. That’s fine, it’s his goal, a cheap wine can do the job.

A more cultured person would probably look for a more full and complex pleasure, something coming from a good if not great bottle of wine.

It’s a a matter of scope.

You can’t buy a cheap bottle of wine, stick it in your wine cellar and hope to have a great drink in a decade or so. It just doesn’t work.

In the same way you can’t buy cheap code and hope it will be the base for the growth for a great IT product.

It’s not a “all or nothing” thing either: there are great wines, like the italian “novello” or french “bojole nouveau” that are ready in a couple of months and they’re ment to be great for a short period of time.

I come from a wine making family, I was the one breaking a 3 generations tradition. I remember the love and passion driving my dad and grampa while they were producing what in the ancient times was known as gods’ drink.

I now see that the same love, passion and drive in great coders I’m lucky to meet along my journey in the IT world and somehow it’s makes me feel like I didn’t totally depart from my family’s traditions.

They’re both craftsmanship, both a human work, both alive and needing care.

And you know what they say: “Life is too short to drink cheap wine”