[recursivedoubts]

> I’ve fallen into this trap so many times (Grapevine, Venyu, etc). But now, I think I’m finally out. There’s one key change I made to escape this cycle: I remind myself that I’m not an artist, and coding isn’t creative expression. There should be no huge emotional investment or pursuit of beauty in shipping SaaS, so I need divorce myself from the end result.

Agree that we shouldn't invest ourselves emotionally too much in outcomes beyond the code: there are too many arbitrary and non-technical factors that go into the success or failure of a given software project.

However, code beauty is the game within the game of software, and should be pursued for its own sake. Beauty is subjective to an extent, but if you aren't at least trying for beautiful code you aren't fully actualizing yourself as a programmer.