Depression driven development

Depression driven development, or widely known as "DDD", is commonly thought of as just a software development process. It can, however, be applied to all aspects of life, not just programming, development, or other projects.

what is DDD

Depression driven development is where you, the engineer, do a big burst of development into a project. It's common to see tens of high quality commits (HQCs) in quick succession, often spanning a few days, or sometimes a week. Followed by a huge drop in commit frequency. After that gap you'll see one or two low quality commits (LQCs) that simply get the project into a state of "it does what I wanted; nothing more".

This process is most commonly applied to personal projects. But in the enterprise world, while it can be used, and while tempting, any project suitable for DDD should instead us "Project Manager Driven Development" (PMDD) where the programmers can lean on their depression to cut as many corners as possible to just make their PM stop riding them about features.

Using DDD outside of software

The human psyche is a complex thing. Not everyone has a good grasp on their own mental health or are excellent managers of their own executive dysfunction (ED). The beauty of DDD is it capitalizes on that fernetic "Oh! I think that idea would be great!" as well as the "well, at least its running" dopamine kick where the project could at least be considered "done".

So when you see something like the recycling piling up, your dishes in your sink, or those scraps of paper from when you last emptied the shredder but they fell as you were lifting the heap into the trash bag and flew off somewhere and for whatever reason they keep appearing but you sweep more up and they're still there and now there is just a small mound of little paper shreds behind your desk and you see every time you sit down but think "I'll get that later" and then never do...

DDD is the answer.

Applying DDD in your daily life (or DDDD)

DDDD is tricky, it involves understanding your ED level and finding the right time to actually produce HQCs. Since we can't reliably produce HQCs on at any moment it's important to keep a list, or dashboard, of tasks you want to get done in life or a "Do Dashboard", your Daily Depression Driven Development Do Dashboard, or DDDDDD.

So say you're feeling really motivated one morning. You've drank your coffee, a work meeting didn't totally suck and you feel like "wow maybe my job doesn't suck". The birds are singing, the sun is out, and your upstairs neighbor finally bought shoes not made of concrete. So you think "let me finally just sweep up that final bit of paper and recycle it"

You can chain these life HQCs into other tasks from your dash and soon when your mother visits she won't be upset that you're living out of your laundry basket.

That sounds good and all, but why DDD over other things?

So the reason DDD is a world wide phenomenom is that first D. Depression. Not only is depression widespread and common amongst young adults. But depression is also excellent at pointing out all the things wrong in your life.

All those things your mind yells at you about: Your job performance, how little you actually complete games you buy, that your desk pad probably needs to be washed but how do you actually clean those? are they washer safe? is it handwash only? spot clean? what even is spot cleaning? all of that! It self populates your daily dash! So once you begin DDDD you'll always be able to capitalize on those HQC capable moments (HQCCMs)

Conclusion

Thank you all for reading. Covering such a widely used and known concept felt redundant like "wow another blog about DDD" but I thought it was worth sharing for those few folks who haven't seen it and frequent this blog.

I'd also like to thank my depression. Because writing this post was on my DDDDD and checking off an item feel really good.

/gemlog/

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