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Walls of code

2026-04-07 2 min read learning

Easter. Extended family at the table. At some point the inevitable question lands: "so what exactly do you do at work?" And you realize you have absolutely nothing to show.

The invisible craft

My daily output is SQL models, YAML configuration, CI/CD pipelines, and terminal logs. It's useful. It saves the company real money. But try explaining any of that over dinner to someone who uses a computer for email and Facebook - or doesn't really use one at all.

"I write... code. For data. The results are... tables. With data. Which then become dashboards and reports and things." Awkward pause. Polite nodding. Topic changes to something everyone can actually relate to.

It's not that the work isn't valuable. It's that the results are invisible to anyone outside the field. There's no app to open, no animation to play, no before-and-after that speaks for itself. And when I try to explain anyway, I tend to forget myself - suddenly I'm way too deep into how CI/CD pipelines work, talking with an almost unhealthy level of passion, only to catch myself way too many minutes later. At that point I'm basically Syndrome from The Incredibles - "you got me monologuing".

Humans like seeing things

There's a reason people share game clips, design mockups, and 3D renders - not grep output. Most people see a terminal window and immediately assume you're either hacking into the Pentagon or something has gone terribly wrong. A smooth animation, an interactive chart, even a simple web page with a button that does something visible - these communicate "I made this" in a way that a screenshot of 200 lines of SQL never will.

I've known this for a while but kept pushing it aside. Anything visual was always "later". JavaScript was always "when I have time". And here I am, years into my career, with nothing to point at when someone asks what I do.

Time to fix that

I have a long-postponed date with JS - or maybe I skip straight to WebAssembly and build something closer to the performance-heavy side of things. Still thinking about that one. There's also Manim - the animation library behind 3blue1brown's YouTube channel - which could be an interesting middle ground for someone who thinks in data and logic, not design.

Takeaway If you can't show it, it barely exists to most people. Terminal output doesn't land at a dinner table. Having something visual to point at changes the conversation entirely.

I haven't decided which path yet. But that holiday dinner made one thing clear - I want to have something to show next time someone asks.

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