Who are the real heroes of programming?

My customers. 


My customers do great things. They often need my software, built and functioning properly for years to do these things. I love building stuff, but they are the real heroes. Just some of the things that they do:

- get the right drugs get to the right people 

- get the ambulance to the right address 

- get the right materials purchased and delivered 

- get the right product built, on time and budget 

- get the right product shipped accurately and on time 

- make sure the parts going into that airplane are certified 

- make sure your insurance claim gets processed properly 

- make sure they make enough $, so they can keep doing it 

I can go on and on, but you kinda get the idea. I love to learn, to optimize and refactor, and to build beautiful things. But what I do pales in comparison to what they need to do. I never forget that.