Steady Hands

Most of what I publish is software. One of the things I do away from a keyboard is pistol shooting, in the 10 m and 25 m disciplines, and it is the part of my life that looks least like the rest.

In 2024 I won gold at the 55th Kerala State Shooting Championship in Palakkad, in pistol, under the Kerala State Rifle Association. That is the one result I will put a name and a year on. My site also lists me with the National Rifle Association of India and the ISSF, in 10 m and 25 m pistol.

Why I put it next to the code

I want to be careful here. A sport and a career are different things, and I do not think a medal makes anyone a better engineer. What I can say is how the two feel from the inside, and that is opinion, not a measurement.

Shooting is feedback with no hiding. The result is a hole in a target, and it records exactly what your hands did. There is no merge conflict to blame and no flaky test. Debugging has the same property when it goes well: the system does what it does, and the only question is whether you can stay calm enough to look at it.

The part that carries over

The comparison I would make, and it is only my opinion, is slowness at the right moment. A rushed shot and a rushed deploy fail the same way, by skipping the check you already knew you should make.

The part that does not carry over is the result. A shot is final once it leaves the barrel, and code can be fixed tomorrow. That is a luxury worth remembering when you are being too hard on a commit.