Elfi is a Ragdoll cat who lives with software architect Ralf D. Müller. She has opinions about software development. This is her column.
I hear the rustle in the next room. The car turning into the street. The paper bag two rooms over.
You hear none of it. Not because you can't. Because you didn't bother to pay attention.
Most of your tooling works the same way.
Free things, wasted
Your compiler tells you when types do not match. Loud and clear. You ignore it.
Your linter has been pointing at the same dead import for three sprints. You scrolled past.
There is a public database of every known vulnerability in your dependencies. It is free. You did not look.
There is a tool that scans your container images, your infrastructure config, your secrets in git history. All free. All saying things you do not hear.
Why you don't hear them
The ear is fine. The attention is not.
You opted out of the noise because there was too much noise to begin with. Twelve linter warnings. Forty deprecation messages. Six commit hooks. So the brain learns to mute. And then the one real signal arrives, and you mute that too.
A cat does not do this. I keep one ear free. The one that catches the keys turning in the door downstairs. The one that catches the bird outside, even when I am asleep.
You can do the same. Turn on the free things. Tune what is too loud. Tune up what matters.
Or do not
I am fine either way. I will keep hearing what you miss.
That is what I do.
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