{"id":1554,"date":"2012-07-23T13:48:33","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T20:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2018-04-12T00:46:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T04:46:23","slug":"when-being-good-is-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/when-being-good-is-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"When Being Good is Bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to start off this post with a story:\\n\\n<\/p>\n

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the \u201cquantity\u201d group: fifty pounds of pots rated an \u201cA\u201d, forty pounds a \u201cB\u201d, and so on. Those being graded on \u201cquality\u201d, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one \u2013 to get an \u201cA\u201d. Well, grading time came\u00a0and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the \u201cquantity\u201d group was busily churning out piles of work \u2013 and learning from their mistakes \u2013 the \u201cquality\u201d group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\\n\\nThis story is from the book Art & Fear<\/a>.\\n\\nI\u2019ll admit I haven\u2019t actually read this book, but I came across this one day and it really struck me.\\n\\n\"pottery-2\"<\/a>\\n\\n<\/p>\n

The better you get the worse you get<\/h2>\n

\\n\\nSoftware development is a difficult profession.<\/strong>\u00a0 It is fairly easy to learn how to program, but learning how to actually build a full software system can take years of study and practice.\\n\\nOne thing I have noticed though is that new software developers tend to be really productive.\\n\\nI remember back in the day having my floppy disk with several different programs I was working on.\u00a0 It seemed that as I started to understand software development better, I actually started to become less productive.\\n\\n\"floppy8\"<\/a>\\n\\nWhy would that be?\\n\\nI have a few theories on this, but my main theory is that when we don\u2019t really know what we are doing we just try to get the task done.\\n\\nRemember when you were a kid?\u00a0 Mostly likely you did a lot of drawings.\u00a0 Probably your drawings weren\u2019t really that good and if you judged them by your standards of art today, you might even call them terrible.\\n\\nHow come you don\u2019t draw so much now?\u00a0 (Perhaps you do, but most of us don\u2019t.)\u00a0 A better question though is \u201cwhy did you draw so much then?<\/strong>\u201d\\n\\nThere are of course many answers to this question, but I think most of us will find that one of the reasons why youngsters draw so much is because they are exploring and learning and not limited by constraints.\\n\\nAt some point as we get older, we have a notion of what good art is and what art should like.\u00a0 We might even learn how to properly draw.\u00a0 We end up having an expectation of what is a good drawing, which tends to create a bigger entry barrier for picking up that crayon.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

\\n\\n<\/p>\n

So what happened?<\/h2>\n

\\n\\nI know I went through a phase myself in software development, where I wasn\u2019t nearly as productive as I could have been.\\n\\nI spent a good deal of time on \u201cproblem admiration,\u201d and an even greater amount of time on \u201cmaking the simple complex.\u201d<\/strong>\\n\\nAs software developers we have a tendency to box ourselves in by constraints as we search for the perfect solution to a problem.\\n\\nNow before I get too far here, I am in no way suggesting to write crap code and ship it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t do that!\\n\\nWhat I am suggesting is to try and find a solution that is 90% optimal and, knowing that you can revisit the problem again if you need to actually find a better solution, go with it, rather than spend time up front looking for that 95% optimal or higher solution.\\n\\nI\u2019ve written before that this is the hardest thing I struggle with<\/a> and I think it is true for many software developers.\\n\\nThe problem is that when we start out as software developers we don\u2019t know the \u201cright way\u201d to do things so we are less constrained in what we do.\u00a0 We just march forward and go do things.\\n\\nAs we start to learn the \u201cright way\u201d to do things, we are often stifled by that knowledge and the constraints it brings and that causes us to be less productive or to over engineer and design solutions to problems.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

So am I suggesting amateurs are better than professionals?<\/h2>\n

\\n\\nNot by any means, but perhaps they are better in some regards.\u00a0 Perhaps they are better at producing more.\\n\\nIn my mind the key is to be able to take that constraint-less, fearless attitude of a new developer and temper it with the knowledge and wisdom of experience.\\n\\nI have applied this myself and in the last few years and it has increased my productivity immensely.\\n\\nHere are some practical ways that I was able to increase my productivity as a developer.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n
  • Leap before you look.<\/strong>\u00a0 I stopped reading up on a subject or technology so much before jumping into it.\u00a0 I started by jumping into it and then refining my knowledge as opposed to trying to learn something and then do it.<\/li>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n

  • Stop worrying about how.<\/strong>\u00a0 Often when I consider some course of action or a project to work on, then first thing I will consider is how I will accomplish it.\u00a0 This is a killer for motivation and a waste of time.\u00a0 How is not important, what and when are far more important.\u00a0 How gets us caught up in the details.\u00a0 I started having faith in myself that I would figure out how as I needed to.<\/li>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n

  • Don\u2019t be a afraid to do it dirty first.<\/strong>\u00a0 Many times I want to start of with a clean solution to a problem.\u00a0 This is often a waste of time, because you don\u2019t know enough about a problem to design it properly until you start trying to solve the problem.<\/li>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n

  • Don\u2019t be afraid to rewrite code.<\/strong>\u00a0 This goes hand and hand with my previous bullet, but I included it here, because it is important on its own.\u00a0 Rewriting something is not bad or as hard as it seems.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t afraid to completely rewrite some code you wrote, you are more likely to solve a problem with a less than optimal solution, which will advance you on your way, instead of getting stuck.<\/li>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n

  • Recognize that there is no perfect solution, there are only solutions that are optimized for one or more variables.<\/strong>\u00a0 Some solutions have fewer trade-offs than others, but all solutions have trade-offs, which cannot be avoided, no matter how hard you try.<\/li>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n

  • Don\u2019t be afraid to fail, but fail because you ran as hard as you could, not because you gave up.<\/strong>\u00a0 It is much better to try 20 times at a big goal and have the 20th time be a success than it is to pick some small goal you know you can accomplish and get it the first time.\u00a0 You can only succeed as big as you are willing to fail.\u00a0 They key thing about failure is that when you get knocked down, you can always get back up.<\/li>\n

    \\n<\/ul>\n

    \\n\\n<\/p>\n

    The moral of this story\u2026<\/h2>\n

    \\n\\nSo sometimes, being good is bad, because it hinders and paralyses us.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found that many more things are accomplished by doers than by thinkers.\\n\\nDon\u2019t let your knowledge of the \u201ccraft\u201d of software development be a hindrance to your productivity or you will be destined to watch those with less skill and knowledge than you constantly surpass you while you angrily and bitterly critique them from the sidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I want to start off this post with a story:\\n\\n The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2185,14560,264,4909,5895],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-practices","category-career","category-learning","category-psychology","category-self-improvement"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Being Good is Bad - Simple Programmer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I remember back in the day having my floppy disk with several different programs I was working on. 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