2026-09-07

I learned to make things before I learned how I was supposed to make them.

I’ve realised recently that my music and software careers followed almost exactly the same pattern.

Make something.

Observe it.

Understand it.

Improve it.

Then learn the terminology and processes that explain what you’ve already discovered.

As a young songwriter, I could put an odd bar into a song because I could hear that the song needed it.

I didn’t necessarily have the musical vocabulary to explain what I’d done.

Software wasn’t much different.

Build the thing.

Solve the actual problem.

Then learn which established practices help you do that more reliably.

I’ve never been particularly interested in following a process simply because that’s the process.

The method serves the outcome. Not the other way around.