I treat my coding as a craft. That has become much easier, since retiring.
I'm quite aware that doing things my way isn't commercially viable, but no one pays me to do it. I do it for myself.
That said, I find that it's important to always be challenging myself[0].
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...
Depends what you mean by “commercially viable”. I’ve been making high quality products as an independent software developer in the photography space for a bit over 2 years now, and while I’m nowhere near my former big tech company salary, I still make more than needed to pay for life every month (not living an extravagant lifestyle somewhere with ridiculous cost of living does help).
And I still feel like I’m far from having reached full potential in my addressable market and the kind of products I want to build - I have indie developer friends who are pretty close to their former big tech salary, after 5+ years.
So, despair not :)
But I still use it on a weekly basis myself so I just can't stop refining it. I've been obsessed with the trichromatic process for 10+ years, ever since I discovered the work of Prokudin Gorsky (even built a website about the process and history: https://trichromy.com, due for a refresh some time). Such a clever approach to color photography that results in such a unique aesthetic.
I see you’re in Tokyo. If you ever end up in Taipei or if I’m in Tokyo I’d love to talk photography over coffee.
The only thing about my way of working that I have commercial viability issues with is when I take over someone else's work and insist on basically rewriting the entire thing before actually continuing the work. I don't always do that, some projects are just too big and some are just fine, some projects don't need me to rewrite them. But most systems I've inherited have been absolute ass and I just refuse to build on a total shit foundation. First I fix the foundation, then I build on it. You want a code monkey to duct tape things together and add workarounds on top of workarounds until the codebase looks like Escher's stairs painting you'll have to find someone else to do it. I fix problems I don't just paint over them.
That has been a problem in some situations in the past but for the most part my work has been appreciated.
Also, I insist on doing extremely high Quality work, and that seems to be very much out of favor, these days.
Just try starting a discussion on improving software Quality, hereabouts, and see how it goes.
For some reason, folks are actually actively against improving code Quality, and that is something that I can't comprehend, so I have to admit that I'm very much a "dinosaur."