Lay your own sod

When you move into a brand new house, you inevitably are left with a few projects by the builder to wrap up. 2 such projects on near opposite ends of the difficulty spectrum are pouring concrete and laying sod.

I’ve yet to meet a neighbor who has poured their own concrete, but almost all of my neighbors have laid their own sod.

If you’re already paying someone for the concrete, why not pay someone for the sod too?

If you’re already laying the sod yourself, why not pour the concrete yourself too?

Like is often the case, the answer is well.. “it depends”.

Dev tools and experts

In the last few years I’ve become a bit jaded to the “experts” who know better than me.

Merchants of complexity evangelize FUD and sell convenience.

“It’s too hard to do it yourself! We know best!”

Yes, you save time trading your labor for another’s specialization (thanks Adam Smith), but there is a difference between an expert that talks down to me: “trust me, you don’t want to tackle this” vs an alternative: “come along, it’s not so hard”.

Not all jobs are the same:

You’ll pay someone to pour concrete, but will DIY laying sod.

Some tech is sod, some is concrete.

In the recent past, I feel like I’m being fed a message that every project is the difficulty of concrete. Could that possibly be the case though? Is scaling horizontally always better than vertically? According to some vendors, yes.

Prior knowledge

Some of my neighbors had dads who taught them to lay PVC pipe and install their own sprinklers, other’s (like me) wouldn’t tackle that job if they were paid to do it themselves.

In software, there are a unlimited options and things to learn. My friend who will run his own kubernetes cluster from his emacs cockpit will not take on the same DIY projects as my friend who creates single div CSS landscapes.

The wise engineer should differentiate the concrete from the sod.