aesthetic over vision

Over the years, I've grown to dislike the word "vision" in the context of software development. I do recognize the significance of a common understanding and overarching narrative for the work that's done. People often use terms like "vision" and "north star" to describe documents that try to capture such a narrative.

There's another category of verbal creativity that could be grouped under "principles" or "philosophy." I find that far more tolerable -- hell, I even wrote in this genre!

Recently, I've formulated a different language for myself, one centered around an even more elusive concept -- aesthetic. It's something that's hard to capture in any kind of document, and that's partly the point of using this language. It exists in minds and between minds. It informs, evolves, and updates itself. Things like values, principles, and visions are somewhat downstream from it. It's "taste for good code." It's "what's beautiful and proper." It's "culture." It's "how we work and treat each other." It's "which properties we value in the systems we build." And there's more that I don't want to explicitly spell out -- I’m sure many people could define it better than I can.

Another related insight I've taken from conversations with friends is that it's probably better to strive to be an example rather than try to "scale yourself" through some soulless document. That's my current thinking, and I find it liberating.

aesthetic > vision.