Writing code affects my ability to detach.

• Reflections on detachment.
• Learning to detachment is like learning to swim.
• Attachers and Detachers.

Writing code trains me to attached. Writing unit tests trains me to attach. The Red Green Refactor loop trains be to attach. The Code, Test, Revert flow trains me to attach.

Being an engineer trains me to attach because conditions, idempotency, and assertions are what drives many of our foundational clean code practices.

    expect(value).equals(100) // PASS

I pride myself on the ability to take a complex process, break it down, and then apply expectations on these simpler tasks.

An Expectation is an Attachment. Every time I deploy our code I attach the expectation that it will pass my tests. If it fails, I go deeper, I look into how and why my assertion was invalid.

It’s this skill of discovering robust expectations that enables me to create powerful systems. Being able to pluck the right for the job is an important engineering skill. This takes time to learn.

It makes me wonder.

“Is the software engineering industry breeding a generation of unhealthy Attachers?”