If you’ve ever watched The Muppet Show, you know Statler and Waldorf. They were the two guys in the box seats who spent every single episode relentlessly heckling the performers. To the typical audience, it looked like they hated being there.

But my theory has always been different: They might have hated the show, but they LOVED theater. If they didn’t care about the craft, they would have been elsewhere. Instead, they never missed a performance.

That’s exactly how I see us.

The Art of the Heckle

As Heckle & Code, and before, we spend a lot of time playing the roles of those two guys in the balcony. We’re constantly critiquing the “show” that is modern software development. We mock the over-engineered frameworks, we roll our eyes at the latest industry buzzwords, and we “boo” the tech debt that everyone else seems to ignore.

But we aren’t cynical for the sake of being cynical. We’re in the balcony because we care about the performance.

Why We Code

There are people who do this because it’s a career—they show up, they complete the ticket/task, and they go home. They aren’t in the balcony; they’re just audience members waiting for the intermission.

For us, it’s different. We see code as an art form. Whether it’s architecting a complex Python application, refining the flow of a WordPress site, or engineering the perfect bridge between them through a custom API, we treat it with the same reverence a critic treats a stage play.

Two Seats, One Show

The reason “Heckle & Code” works is that we’re sitting in those same balcony seats. We recognize that even when the performers are flailing and the stage is on fire, there is something worth watching—and worth building—underneath it all.

We might be the harshest critics in the room, but we’re also the most loyal fans of the craft. We’ll keep heckling, we’ll keep critiquing, and most importantly, we’ll keep showing up for the next act.