Sean Werkema's Blog

I started my new job this week, working for a company called Suvoda, in Conshohocken, PA. They run clinical drug trials, which means that in a literal sense in my new job, I get to use advanced computer science to help cure cancer.

ROCK ON.

The place is really neat, and while I’m still getting used to it, I love the vibe there. We’re doing good things for the right reasons, and I get the absolutely delightful side benefit of working with a few old friends, too. The company is healthy and growing, and everybody’s been incredibly friendly. I’m looking forward to doing great things with their teams there and helping them to have no end of successes.

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So why Suvoda? Why not somewhere else?

When I left my last job in April, I was looking for three things: I wanted to find a place (1) where the people were smart and dedicated, (2) where there was a focus on making good-quality software, and (3) where my job would be beneficial to humanity: Where I was doing good things for the right reasons, and not just to benefit the company’s bottom line. I interviewed at a lot of companies over the last six months, dozens and dozens of interviews, and while some jobs had some of those three criteria to varying degrees, Suvoda was the only one that really nailed all of them.

“Curing cancer” is a set phrase for “doing good in the world,” and Suvoda is literally in the business of curing cancer. I get the privilege to be a part of something that unequivocally makes the world a better place. My part is a small part of that whole equation, but if I can even slightly tie my work to somebody someday no longer suffering a terrible disease, I’ll be living a life that I can be proud of, and that matters: When you someday have to stand before Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates and he asks, “Well, so tell me, what did you do down there?” you want to have an answer far better than just, “I made lots of money!”

That said, there are a few downsides — no job is perfect! — but they’re small and manageable. The first is that the commute is longish, averaging about 45 minutes each way (best this week so far is 35 minutes, worst was about 70 minutes). I’ll be spending a bit more on gas than I used to.

The second is that since the commute is longish, my personal time is much shorter than it used to be: If you don’t hear back from me during the work week, it’s because we have kids to feed and water and put to bed in the evening, and 6:00 AM comes around pretty darn fast in the morning if you don’t get your keister heading to bed by nine. (Today’s a Saturday, and I “slept in” — I woke up at 6:30.)

And the third and final notable downside is that I’ve signed dozens of nondisclosure agreements this week, mostly for legal and safety and patient-privacy reasons — all of which are good reasons to be signing NDAs, and I’ve signed them quite willingly.

But that means I can’t tell you pretty much any more than I’ve already said about what I’ll be doing at Suvoda 🙂

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But my job search is finally over, and I’ve found myself a new place to call home, a place where the people are nice, the pay and benefits are good, and the work is meaningful and the right thing to be spending my time and energy on. May all of you find such purpose.

Thick accent. “Hello, my name is Ree-chard Lee and I am calling from Department of Computer Support.”

Me: “Er, I didn’t really hear that, who are you again?”

“I’m sorry. My name is Ree-chard Lee, and I am calling from Department of Computer Support about your computer. Are you seeing white dialog box on your computer?”

Pause.

Me: “Er, for the record, you do know you just called a computer scientist with thirty years’ experience, right?”

Click.

I probably should’ve kept him on the phone longer just to waste his time, but dang, it’s been a long day, and I’m too tired even for that kind of fun.

But maybe if he calls back…

I swear there is no part of the Node ecosystem that isn’t a flaming tire fire. Does anyone ever design anything before implementing it anymore?

Try this example:

• NPM is a package manager. But you can’t install packages from local source (i.e., on this computer) in older versions because NPM was only really designed to work with a single remote repository. (New versions at least let you add multiple remote repositories, as a somewhat hacky extension.)
• There’s a workaround hack feature called npm link that lets you set up a symbolic link — a pointer — to a local package. It doesn’t work like a standard link command, so you’ll have some relearning to do if you want to use it.
• But nevermind that learning, because npm link has no shortage of problems and bugs and failings and workarounds and workarounds to the workarounds. Also, it has disastrous data-destroying bugs on Windows.
• But nevermind the bugs, because it’s not compatible with the normal npm install commands anyway, so the one use case you’ll have for it — installing packages from a local directory to make sure your design works — isn’t really usable with it anyway.

None of that would have been an issue with a little more advance thinking and a little less advance typing. Two small design changes early on — (1) allow multiple repositories to be listed in .npmrc and check them in order, and (2) allow the file:// protocol to point to a local directory of .zip files or tarballs as a repository — would have been enough to obviate all of this. NPM scopes, link, yalc, lerna, and a dozen other things built on top of the initial bad design would have been completely unnecessary.

But, no, can’t spend time on that! — you gotta move fast, be first, break things, change the paradigm, own the market, declare your IPO, and retire like a king. Never, ever design or plan anything, because that takes too long! Just shove something barely-passable out the door, and if enough people use it, make a slightly better layer on top to hide the roughest parts, and then if that gets used, another on top of that, and after enough layers, you might not even notice the sand you built on. After all, when you’re changing the world, who cares if anything actually works?

The construction foreman stood and stared at the plans. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Of course it is!” said Mary. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“Well — I’m not sure we can build this exactly as described,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, describe it again.”

Mary cleared her throat. “Look, so these are the plans for the house. They’re simple and as plain as day. Two floors, three or four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and maybe a third, and a living room, and a kitchen. The kitchen definitely needs all stainless-steel appliances, and it should be painted blue.”

The construction foreman wrinkled his brow. “What about the roof?”

“What do you mean?”

“You want a roof, right? There’s no roof in any of the plans.”

“Well, of course we want a roof,” said Mary. “I don’t want it to rain in the living room.”

“But the living room is only one storey tall.”

“What?” said Mary irritably.

“Nevermind. What kind of style and slope do you want the roof to have?”

“We don’t need to bother with those details now,” said Mary. “Just get to building. We need the house built soon.”

The construction foreman grimaced again and looked over at the architect, who had been quiet up until now. “Have you got a slope for the roof?”

“Well, they’d like it to have dormers,” he said sheepishly.

“Oh, yes, dormers!” said Mary brightly. “I forgot about those. Definitely dormers. And a chimney. The roof should have a nice line when viewed from a distance.”

“All right,” said the foreman. “I suppose we’re getting somewhere. There seem to be some erased lines here at, oh, about — I’d call that thirty degrees. Is thirty degrees what you want?”

“What does that mean?” said Mary.

“The angle of the roof.”

“I don’t care, you’re the construction expert. Don’t bother me with little details. Just build whatever you need to build, but make sure the kitchen is gray.”

“Gray? I thought you said blue.”

“Oh, well, we focus-grouped it among the family, and I forgot that gray was more popular. I rather liked the blue myself. But definitely gray. Also we need space for three refrigerators.”

The foreman blinked and looked up from the plans. “You need three refrigerators?”

“I sometimes throw parties,” said Mary, “and I need enough room to store a tray of vegetables and ranch dip.”

The foreman swallowed hard and turned back to the plans, letting the subject drop.

“What’s this?” he said, pointing at a box in the middle of the paper.

“Oh, that’s the guest house,” said Mary.

“A guest house? Inside your regular house?”

“Well, you don’t want the guests to have to go outside to visit us, now, do you?”

The foreman shook his head.

He took a deep breath. “So you want this house, as drawn, with a thirty-degree roof, three bedrooms — “

” — or four,” chimed in Mary.

” — or four,” repeated the foreman, “three bathrooms — “

” — unless they’re expensive, and then we only want two,” said Mary.

” — and a gray kitchen with three stainless steel refrigerators in it,” he finished.

“Exactly,” said Mary. “How long do you think it will take?”

“Well, it usually takes my team three to six months to build a house, depending on size and configuration and how long it takes to get the permits — “

“Oh, that won’t do!” said Mary. “We need it in six weeks for the start of spring! We’ve already invited everyone over!”

“Uh, I suppose I could hire more people, but — “

“And I need you to do it for half the cost you quoted,” said Mary. “We just had our budget cut yesterday. Something about Bill partying in the Maldives. Seems he bought a few too many drinks for some of his clients, and we’re now a few hundred thousand dollars short. But if this project goes well and comes in on time, we’ll buy all your workers pizza.”

The foreman looked down at his phone. “Sure. Six weeks for half the money, probably a roof, some rooms of uncertain number but not too many or two few, and definitely three stainless steel refrigerators.”

“Exactly!” said Mary brightly. “And if you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail. I can’t always answer, but I promise I’ll at least think about reading your messages. When do you think you can start work?”

The foreman skimmed through his calendar. “It looks like I have an opening — yes. How does the thirty-second of Octember sound?”

How is Sharknado vs. Polar Bear Vortex not yet a thing? It’s a 1000% awful idea! You know darned well we would all tune in with huge bowls of popcorn to watch the insanity of Bruce Campbell using a bazooka that shoots tornados of hyperevolved laser sharks to attack a swirling vortex of flying mutant polar bears. Come on, Syfy, the script writes itself!