5 ms·

Mongrel 2 and now a book on Python. The man is a machine.

by SteveC 16y ago

regularfry 16y ago
If I remember correctly, he's also currently unemployed. This may be relevant :-)
- jonknee 16y ago
  He does more without a job than most people do with one.
- Luyt 16y ago
  He's also planning to give python classes: http://codelesson.com/python http://codelesson.com/python (discussed in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1724354 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1724354)
- boundlessdreamz 16y ago
  Wasn't he employed with dropbox?
  - lrm242 16y ago
    He was.
- zedshaw 16y ago
  I am, but to be honest, I got more done when I had a job. See all those sites? I did all of those, wrote for them, worked on LPTHW, wrote mulletdb.com, hacked on lamson, a few other projects, and still played guitar about 4 hours a day. Now that I'm just working on Mongrel2 it feels like I do less. Weird.
  - nocman 16y ago
    Geez, man. Do you ever sleep? :-) Oh, and just out of curiosity, what guitar music are you spending the most time on? Is it mostly your own stuff, or are you learning a lot of things written by others?
    - zedshaw 16y ago
      I work on Jazz mostly, but older Jazz. Which means I play a lot of scales. :-)
mikeryan 16y ago
I don't know why he's wasting time teaching python he could make millions (bwahahaha) giving "getting things done" seminars. Of course they would probably consist of him saying "find something that pisses you off.Then fix it" over and over.
- bmelton 16y ago
  I don't know how you got downvoted, but I don't suppose it changes the intent of my reply either way: That MIGHT just be the secret to Zed's success -- that so much in the world seems to piss him off means that there is so much stuff he feels he needs to fix that he's constantly drowning in the need to fix something. Some of us are more complacent -- I'm happy to fix the things that irritate me, but my body of work may be less prolific because I'm generally happy with the products that I use.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    Spite is an incredibly powerful motivator, only outclassed by survival.
    - bmelton 16y ago
      For years, I worked for a boss who was always right. Not necessarily by being smarter, but by sheer force of will. She's a brilliant lady, and figured out the way to get some of the more competent technicians to perform was to subtly infer that she didn't think we could make deadline, knowing we'd bust our asses and put in 30 hour shifts to do it, just so she wouldn't be allowed to 'win'. We called this process 'Hate Driven Development', and yes, in hindsight (and even in the moment) we all knew what she was doing, but she was clever enough to put it out there in ways where it worked even still.
zedshaw 16y ago
I keep meaning to write some kind of blog about this, but I call it "time opportunism" as opposed to "time management". That's the best name I could come up with for this thing I do that keeps me creative and flexible yet still getting things done. In a nutshell, I quit trying to explicitly plan and organize my life (not that I was any good at that) and instead I have a giant bag of things I need to do. There's usually a bunch of projects, and each has a todo list. All I do is when I have the time to work on one AND the motivation, then I go bang out as much as I can until I can't. By having lots of different little projects I'm pretty sure I'll always have something to work on that motivates me at that time. The only caveat on this is I then do one thing at a time. I see too many people who can't get their todo list down are usually trying to do 5 things at once. A good sign you're this kind of person is if you love patch queues. Just do one thing, and make sure before you do it that you can do it. Don't juggle 10 things at once.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Sounds like Structured Procrastination to me. http://structuredprocrastination.com/ http://structuredprocrastination.com/
- chegra 16y ago
  I for one would appreciate a blog post on this. I'm pretty sure the rest of the community are there right along side me.
- chuhnk 16y ago
  Thank you for posting this comment. I don't know why but this completely makes me think of context switching in the kernel and everything then becomes clear. I am guilty of "multitasking" and at the end of it accomplishing almost nothing, only recently have I realised the error in my ways. Your recent work and comment are confirmation that focusing on one thing at a time is the way forward when working on substantial tasks.

Mongrel 2 and now a book on Python. The man is a machine.

by SteveC 16y ago

Mongrel 2 and now a book on Python. The man is a machine.

regularfry 16y ago

If I remember correctly, he's also currently unemployed. This may be relevant :-)

jonknee 16y ago
He does more without a job than most people do with one.
Luyt 16y ago
He's also planning to give python classes: http://codelesson.com/python http://codelesson.com/python (discussed in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1724354 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1724354)
boundlessdreamz 16y ago
Wasn't he employed with dropbox?
- lrm242 16y ago
  He was.
zedshaw 16y ago
I am, but to be honest, I got more done when I had a job. See all those sites? I did all of those, wrote for them, worked on LPTHW, wrote mulletdb.com, hacked on lamson, a few other projects, and still played guitar about 4 hours a day. Now that I'm just working on Mongrel2 it feels like I do less. Weird.
- nocman 16y ago
  Geez, man. Do you ever sleep? :-) Oh, and just out of curiosity, what guitar music are you spending the most time on? Is it mostly your own stuff, or are you learning a lot of things written by others?
  - zedshaw 16y ago
    I work on Jazz mostly, but older Jazz. Which means I play a lot of scales. :-)

mikeryan 16y ago

I don't know why he's wasting time teaching python he could make millions (bwahahaha) giving "getting things done" seminars. Of course they would probably consist of him saying "find something that pisses you off.Then fix it" over and over.

bmelton 16y ago
I don't know how you got downvoted, but I don't suppose it changes the intent of my reply either way: That MIGHT just be the secret to Zed's success -- that so much in the world seems to piss him off means that there is so much stuff he feels he needs to fix that he's constantly drowning in the need to fix something. Some of us are more complacent -- I'm happy to fix the things that irritate me, but my body of work may be less prolific because I'm generally happy with the products that I use.
- blasdel 16y ago
  Spite is an incredibly powerful motivator, only outclassed by survival.
  - bmelton 16y ago
    For years, I worked for a boss who was always right. Not necessarily by being smarter, but by sheer force of will. She's a brilliant lady, and figured out the way to get some of the more competent technicians to perform was to subtly infer that she didn't think we could make deadline, knowing we'd bust our asses and put in 30 hour shifts to do it, just so she wouldn't be allowed to 'win'. We called this process 'Hate Driven Development', and yes, in hindsight (and even in the moment) we all knew what she was doing, but she was clever enough to put it out there in ways where it worked even still.

zedshaw 16y ago

I keep meaning to write some kind of blog about this, but I call it "time opportunism" as opposed to "time management". That's the best name I could come up with for this thing I do that keeps me creative and flexible yet still getting things done. In a nutshell, I quit trying to explicitly plan and organize my life (not that I was any good at that) and instead I have a giant bag of things I need to do. There's usually a bunch of projects, and each has a todo list. All I do is when I have the time to work on one AND the motivation, then I go bang out as much as I can until I can't. By having lots of different little projects I'm pretty sure I'll always have something to work on that motivates me at that time. The only caveat on this is I then do one thing at a time. I see too many people who can't get their todo list down are usually trying to do 5 things at once. A good sign you're this kind of person is if you love patch queues. Just do one thing, and make sure before you do it that you can do it. Don't juggle 10 things at once.

steveklabnik 16y ago
Sounds like Structured Procrastination to me. http://structuredprocrastination.com/ http://structuredprocrastination.com/
chegra 16y ago
I for one would appreciate a blog post on this. I'm pretty sure the rest of the community are there right along side me.
chuhnk 16y ago
Thank you for posting this comment. I don't know why but this completely makes me think of context switching in the kernel and everything then becomes clear. I am guilty of "multitasking" and at the end of it accomplishing almost nothing, only recently have I realised the error in my ways. Your recent work and comment are confirmation that focusing on one thing at a time is the way forward when working on substantial tasks.