When I was an early teenager, I took violin playing lessons. Whenever I asked my teacher about violin playing technique, he would always give me a quote which h

When I was an early teenager, I took violin playing lessons. Whenever I asked my teacher about violin playing technique, he would always give me a quote which he attributed to famous violin teacher D.C. Dounis: "There is no technique, only a bunch of tricks that help you play better." He didn't want me to get stuck in the 'technique' mindset. I think he was trying to tell me that applying a predefined technique instead of experimenting with different things meant you were not adapting to the current song, style, your, body or cognitive abilities. Different 'tricks-from-the-masters' worked differently with different people in different situations and a smart player would try different things until they found the combination that made playing easier and better sounding in his current context. I always thought that quote applied very well to programming.