Dec 14, 2021 9:03:38 AM | About Lagarsoft Why you should be a Lagarto

This week I wanted to write a bit about Lizards or Lagartos as we call them in Uruguay. 

Why Lizards? 

It’s a misconception that our company is named after beer. At Lagarsoft, we’ve been asked many times if our name comes from the word Lager. I want to dispel that notion once and for all. The big difference being character #4, the e. If you’ve ever coded before you will know that a simple misspelling or typo can change the meaning of the code you are trying to write. I’ll use a very easy example: print('hell') has a very large difference than print('hello') See our example below:

First, a quick Biology lesson. Following this, you can watch an inspirational video in very fast Spanish (even I almost have trouble understanding the speaker, he is that intense), then we will draw the connection between Lagartos and our team. 

Everything you should know about Lagartos

You may have never heard of the Lagarto Overo (in English they are commonly referred to as the black and white tegu. They appear a bit similar to monitor lizards and fill a similar ecological niche but are only distantly related. They grow fairly large (males can reach over 1 meter or 4-4.5 ft long) and are incredibly intelligent. This leads them to being kept as pets across the world and they can even be housebroken like a dog. 

Lagarto Overo, also known as the Common Black & White Tegu
So why the Lagarto for our company name?

Many moons ago, our founding team worked together in industry. If you’ve managed software developers before you may find that we are often in our own little world when coding. We find motivation from solving problems and using software to change people’s lives, inspirational speeches are not typically motivational. One day, our manager asked us to watch this video. If you have trouble following, don’t worry, I do too due to the speaker’s fast pace and shouting. 

If you want to skip the video, long story short our manager compared us to a bunch of surly, cold blooded, lethargic lizards. If you’ve tried to motivate a team of developers you’ve likely already realized his critical mistake. We loved it and embraced the term. We are a bunch of Lagartos and that’s a good thing. 

There is alot to like about lizards. They’re beautiful animals, eat everything, and are cold blooded so they can pull much of their energy from the sun. In the course of writing this blog, I did a bit of research so I could really understand how big of a group of Lagartos we are: 

1. While lizards are cold blooded, they have feelings too! This really resonates with me as a developer. Yes we write software so can seem uncaring with day to day office politics and general goings on. However we do still have emotions and get excited, usually it’s about a particularly well written bit of code which may confuse people. 
2. Lagartos eat almost anything. If you’ve ever attended a hackathon it’s clear this is a major similarity. I don’t need to expand further on this point. 
3. Predatory animals of the Lagarto include cougars, jaguars, otters, and snakes. All animals I and most developers steer far clear of. Otters? Yes, otters can be scary. They’re basically wild river dogs that both run and swim fast (no getting away). Reports around the world shed light on how vicious they can be. 
4. Lagartos are an invasive species, just like developers. If you get one on your team, they are sure to multiply. Before you know it, you’ll have a full software developer team (also known as a dev colony). 
5. Lagartos spend much of the winter hibernating, just like most developers I know. Cold and me just don’t mix well. 
6. Most lizards also can run on their hind legs for short distances. I’m confident that every software developer was born with the ability to run on two legs (at least for a short distance). 
7. Both developers and lizards shed their skins. This is a lesser known fact about software developers, but I can assure you that it’s 100% true.
8. A lesser known fact about the Lagarto is that they enjoy coding and solving complex problems with simplicity. Some of the best software developers I know work at Lagarsoft. 

So, as you can see, we chose well when we decided to call our company Lagarsoft. We are a true group of Lagartos. We do also enjoy a good Lager as well, it just isn’t why we are called Lagarsoft.