A “yak shave” — the performance of a task solely in order to continue one’s “real work” — has traditionally been a pejorative term in the software and programming world. Much like “real life” yak shaves (fixing the garage door so you can get the car out so you can go to the store so you can make dinner, each task discovered only in service of the one it depends on), shaving programming yaks is typically not considered enviable work. It’s all stuff you reluctantly attend to in order to get on...