I see developers get frustrated when they build applications.  I’ve worked on teams where developers have, sometimes quite vocally, expressed frustration with each other whether it’s over a particular way to perform a task, or the quality of another developers code. To be fair, I have caused some of that frustration.  There have been more than one occasions where I have told a developer “I could eat a box of Alpha-Bits and $#!t better code than this.” I’ve also created some code that I knew wasn’t good in order to simply get the job done.  Regardless, software development can be a frustrating task.  It’s a task ColdFusion helps facilitate and does so very well.  ColdFusion has been making hard things easy for coders for over 25 years.

But this article is about more than software development.  It’s about frustration in general, and why feeling frustrated has a silver lining, as well as an ode to ColdFusions ability to eliminate frustrations in my development.

Frustration is created when things don’t happen as we wish, or an obstacle prevents us from receiving the desired result.  Frustration is a result of perceived expectation whether realistic or not.  You create expectations about the way things should be, the way things should work, and so on.  (Don’t get me started on the root evil behind the word “should.”).

Ultimately though, if you’re frustrated, it’s because you give a damn about whatever it is that you’re doing.  That’s the golden ticket; frustration is born out of passion.  A passion for things to be better than they are.  A passion to build great and amazing things.  A passion to see things made elegantly, efficiently, and perfectly.  The moment you need to worry is when you stop being frustrated.  When you give in and accept things as the way they are is a clear sign that you have lost your passion.

So stay frustrated.  It’s a good indicator that you’re still passionate.

And that’s another reason I love ColdFusion.  It’s not perfect, but it does a great job of taking care of a lot of the minutiae you need to code a project well.  When something goes wrong, the messages are clear and straigforward. It helps me understand my frustration more easily and overcome those hindrances so I can get back to doing what I’m passionate about; building exceptional applications.