I love sofware development. I think it’s like making magic, like I used to read about in fantasy books, but for real things… It’s even funny to call it real, since it’s just a series of ephemeral pulses of electricity that make it seem like shapes appear on screens or vibrations that seem like music from speakers. I love this stuff.

But once upon a time, I was like most folk. I thought that computer programmers had boring jobs where they typed in numbers into dead machines. So, anytime someone asks… I mean, when they really want to know… I take time to tell them what it is really like, at least what it is like for me. Because there’s no way you can really know till you do it, if you are one of those people who would want to sink into this alternate reality and make magic happen.

I just got this letter in the mail yesterday. I have no words to express how much this means to me…

The letter actually came in a package. I have 9 more letters to deliver to my former colleagues. I’m going to enjoy hunting them down — I think I am only in touch with two of them. If you know them, if you are them, let me know:

• Bruce Hunt – got address
• Andy Rose – sent
• Tim Wilson – got address
• David Spells – sent
• Steve Pasos – connected!
• Matt Bendiksen – got address
• David Gangwish
• Loius LaSalle – connected!
• Heather Rose

I must have been working on Shockwave at the time, Bruce Hunt was Director of Engineering and Heather Rose was the Product Manager, but I must have sent the email to a wider list. There was some list, I can’t remember the name of, where we could send random, company-wide emails, or maybe it was just the Director team and friends. Who remembers?