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Writing Toy Software Is A Joy

blog.jsbarretto.com · 2,218 words · saved by 3 readers

I think it’s brilliant, and it remains true across many fields (if you’re willing to be a little creative with the definition of ‘create’). It is to this principle that I believe I owe everything I’m truly good at. Some will tell you to avoid reinventing the wheel, but they’re wrong: you should build your own wheel, because it’ll teach you more about how they work than reading a thousand books on them ever will. In 2025, the beauty and craft of writing software is being eroded. AI is threatening to replace us (or, at least, the most joyful aspects of our craft) and software development is being increasingly commodified, measured, packaged, and industrialised. Software development needs more simple joy, and I’ve found that creating toy programs is a great way to remember why I started working with computers again. Toy programs follow the 80:20 rule: 20% of the work, 80% of the functionality. The point is not to build production-worthy software (although it is true that some of the best

Writing Toy Software Is A Joy Home RSS Feed Codeberg GitHub Mastodon YouTube E-Mail Writing Toy Software Is A Joy Why you should write more toy programs 2025-06-15 I am a huge fan of Richard Feyman’s famous quote: “What I cannot create, I do not understand” I think it’s brilliant, and it remains true across many fields (if you’re willing to be a little creative with the definition of ‘create’). It is to this principle that I believe I owe everything I’m truly good at. Some will tell you to avoid reinventing the wheel, but they’re wrong: you should build your own wheel, because it’ll teach you

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