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Dumb and gets things done
- eggoa 16y agoThis is off topic, but I've read that Napoleon actually did value his stupid but energetic officers. They could be counted on to charge whenever ordered, even against impossible odds. (That particular officer would likely die, but that was acceptable part of the overall plan.) Baron Marbot was wounded a dozen or so times this way.
- mathgladiator 16y agoDeep to this is the ability to measure. We like to measure things, and we like to reward proportionate to what we measure. It doesn't work for creativity based fields, but it works great for non-creative tasks. I would look up Dan Pink's book called Drive. You can factor the work equation and combine both methodologies to enable smart programmers to work with dumb programmers. The key is to understand where the line between smart and tedious is.
- afterburner 16y agoReminds me of a Critical Thinking course my company held; the instructor asked everyone how many lazy people they'd want working for them. Everyone who answered said "none", but the instructor countered that they would want at least a few lazy people, so that those people could find the shortcuts and work-saving techniques that could save the whole group time, instead of going full out on a bunch of stuff that's unnecessary or needlessly tedious. I assume the assumption was that these lazy people were also competent, ie. "smart", or they wouldn't necessarily find/make the short-cuts...
- pavel_lishin 16y agoOr worse, the shortcuts they took ended up hurting in the long-run. Making room for the new interns' desks by putting them in the unused corner, instead of renting more office space, is a great shortcut, unless it blocks the fire escape and your building catches fire.
- berntb 16y agoThat is where this famous quote was cribbed from? " I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Most often two of these qualities come together. The officers who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Those who are stupid and lazy make up around 90% of every army in the world, and they can be used for routine work. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord Personally, I try to follow the Perl virtues -- laziness, hubris and impatience. http://wiki.preshweb.co.uk/doku.php?id=perl:virtues http://wiki.preshweb.co.uk/doku.php?id=perl:virtues Edit: Can anyone give a reference to the Napoleon quote? Was that the German general playing off Napoleon? (Or was TFA written by someone too dumb to Google and energetic enough to write from memory?)
- gruseom 16y agoWhat's going on is the usual process by which good quotes get detached from their original authors and grafted onto celebrities (Napoleon in this case). It helps the quote propagate faster. The internet seems to accelerate this process - or maybe it's that it makes it visible because original sources are easier to track down than they used to be. In any case, it's a fun little mini-hobby to follow these things. For example, Gandhi never said the one about "first they laugh at you", Einstein never said the one about insanity being doing the same thing over and over, etc.
- lucasjung 16y agoI've never seen the insanity one attributed to Einstein; usually people say it comes from AA. Personally, that one always drove me nuts because, while I appreciate the sentiment, the way it is phrased is blatantly wrong. I eventually came up with a suitable response: whenever someone quotes that one to me, I pull out a coin and start flipping it repeatedly, calling out "heads" or "tails" each time.
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- Flankk 16y ago"Joel Spolsky says that the ideal programmer is someone who is smart and gets things done. But what about people who are dumb and get things done?" They are not ideal.
- airfoil 16y agoReminds me of the note at the end of the perl man page: "The three principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris." I'm not a Perl guy, but I love that quote.
- edw519 16y agoComputer programs consists of lines of code, and lines of code consist of characters. So it’s good for a programmer to be proficient in producing lines of code and characters. The more proficient I get the more I think that there's an inverse relationship between proficiency and lines of code needed to produce a result.
- j_baker 16y agoMy experience is that "dumb and gets things done" is almost always the most heavily rewarded. Mostly because they are always busy. Most managers tend to stop once they determine if someone gets things done. And the dumb ones certainly get more done than anyone else.
- philwelch 16y agoThere's a similarity with politics. Ideally you want to vote for someone ethical and effective. But the worst candidate is someone who is unethical and effective.
- gcheong 16y agoI'm usually dumb until I've gotten something done. Then I realize I could have done it much smarter.
- rhizome 16y agoRefactoring is not just for code. :)
- markbnine 16y agoI'd first get rid of "smart and doesn't get things done"
- brlewis 16y agoA teacher who instills enthusiasm in a subject area is more valuable than a teacher with no knowledge gaps in said subject area, all other things being equal.
- phillijw 16y agoI see your point but respectfully disagree due to the blanket statement nature.
- ck2 16y agoMany times "dumb and energetic" succeed because they don't overthink what can't be done and somehow make their problem everyone else's. This is like the person that keeps calling you to fix their computer (and then you keep doing it).
- shrikant 16y agoIMHO the writer is setting up simplistic strawmen to knock down, without going into nuances. For e.g., why conflate 'getting things done' with 'producing bad code'? Also, in the paragraph about a 'good teacher', he protests that that this wouldn't matter if they were ignorant. Maybe he could do a better job of conveying the exact context, but I would contend that 'good' implies 'knowledgeable' for a teacher. I've had plenty of teachers who were knowledgeable, but couldn't teach/communicate for nuts. p.s: I might be a bit defensive here, as I honestly consider myself of the 'dumb but gets things done' ilk.
- bballbackus 16y agoAs a high schooler, I'm fascinated with a similar paradox that I've observed. In my opinion there are four defining types of students, smart with a strong work ethic, average intelligence with a strong work ethic, smart but prone to procrastination, and average and prone to procrastination. In the schooling system, the order I listed is also the order of highest grades to lowest grades, meaning that these groups are ordered in highest to lowest scholastic value. I don't think this order is relevant outside of school though as people take more targeted jobs that appeal to their interests. This presents a problem as college admittance is based on the hierarchy I listed, meaning that some of the smarter kids will be put on a path that doesn't set them up for an optimal career.