Sometimes technical, sometimes not, never a kitty

In his "Passionate Programmers" post, Justin James makes a point I doubt anyone disagrees with--hire people who truly enjoy their job.  That's not an idea exclusive to scientists or programmers--that's true in nearly every job, whether it's molecular biologist, floral designer, carpenter, doctor--whatever.

Near the middle, and just as I'm agreeing with his post, Justin makes one statement I have to take exception with:

Programming is increasingly a matter of gluing together libraries written by a few select people, the ones who are having all of the fun. At this point, the places where truly interesting codesmithing seems to occur is in the shops making development tools (Sun, Microsoft, Borland, etc.) and the small places doing niche work. Some of the FOSS projects are extremely interesting as well, and they have the advantage of not caring about profits, so they are free to work on unusual and creative projects regardless of potential market size. Anyone in between these types of environments is just gluing together libraries written by a big-time player into a standard, boring C/R/U/D application.

Boring, as we've established, is very subjective.  Just because I don't build frameworks or controls doesn't mean my work is boring, or that I'm a simpleton.  I really enjoy web design--it has elements of database work (especially optimization, which can be fun), graphic design, copywriting, server and network administration, programming, etc.  I get to use both creative and analytical parts of my mind, more so than writing just "boring old framework code".  I think it's really exciting to launch a new website and see a business grow, or see an established one enhanced.  It's fun working with graphic designers, or even getting to do some yourself.  Saying "anyone in between is just gluing together libraries" totally misses what all goes into other types of work.  It's a little disrespectful, and sells hort the skills and talent a different type of work takes.

Likewise, integrating multimillion dollar ERP and WMS systems isn't a real programming challenge, but they can be intricate puzzles.  The stakes are high, and success makes businesses and people work better.  That's my kind of challenge!