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I have always been a "fearless" programmer, but never realized it until reading this post. Here's how: Fear of not knowing the best way to do things (best pra

by edw519 16y ago

I have always been a "fearless" programmer, but never realized it until reading this post. Here's how: Fear of not knowing the best way to do things (best practices). The sooner you realize that there is never a best way of doing anything, the sooner you can release this silly fear. Some ways are better that others, but any way is better than no way. Just get the thing done. Later, when you refactor, you'll have the best of all worlds: code that did the job right away, a better way of doing things, a satisfied customer, and a great learning experience. Woo hoo! Fear of not using the right tools and languages. Give me an adjustable wrench, 2 screwdrivers, and a big hammer and I can fix just about anything. Same thing with programming. I'm too busy getting work done to learn every new tool or technique. As I've told many programmers over the years: "Whatever you can do, I can do in BASIC. Maybe not as pretty, but probably just as fast and just as effective." Fear of errors (especially compiler errors). You're in the wrong business. Errors are what point you in the right direction. The sooner you learn to embrace errors and use them to refine your work, the sooner you'll become fearless (and better). Fear of schedules. "I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one." - chess master Jose Raul Capablanca. That's what my schedule looks like. One item. One day. Project managers can't stand this, but then again, I get way more work done than they do. Fear of publicity (what will other programmers think about this code?). I never publish my code. Ever. Users get to give me feedback, but I don't give a shit what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. I learn from the code of others and apply those lessons to my own work.

Xurinos 16y ago
I don't give a shit what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. Can you elaborate on this a little? On the surface, it sounds like ego getting in the way of learning and closing your mind to good mentors. On the other hand, you might also have had a helping hand in inventing Lisp or something, and I am your young whippersnapper that you won't be listening to because you have already written my algorithms better before I learned to crawl. The context helps, since I am far from convinced this is a good attitude for programmers (especially my coworkers) to adopt.
- edw519 16y ago
  Can you elaborate on this a little? Let me put it this way... If you gave me a page of your code and asked for feedback, I would return it with 50 red marks on it. If you gave it to me a second time, there would still be 50 red marks, but most of them would have you changing it back to the way it was in the first place. The point is that any programmer can give endless feedback to any other programmer based on a sample of code. In my experience, 90% of that feedback was flat out wrong, and the other 10% was a waste of time. I prefer learning new things the way I have for years now. When I see something cool, either as a user or by looking at the code, I figure out what was done and how I'd like to do it (rarely keeping 100% of it), and then incorporate that into my own style. Having others look at my code has never delivered much value. This may seem like ego, but it's not. It's just a matter of what works best.
  - tjr 16y ago
    Having others look at my code has never delivered much value. Maybe not much value for you, but after enjoying your many insightful comments on this site, I suspect that I would learn a lot by looking at your code. :-)
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      EDIT: (Ignore this. It's wrong, and I should have been more polite anyway. I'm leaving it to teach myself a lesson about being hasty...) If you understood his point, you wouldn't say that. Not that I agree with Ed on this, 95% of my code is published. But still.
      - tjr 16y ago
        He himself says that he learns by looking at others' code. Perhaps I don't understand his point.
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        ... or perhaps I read it too quickly. Which going back over it, seems to be the case. My bad!

by edw519 16y ago

Xurinos 16y ago

I don't give a shit what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. Can you elaborate on this a little? On the surface, it sounds like ego getting in the way of learning and closing your mind to good mentors. On the other hand, you might also have had a helping hand in inventing Lisp or something, and I am your young whippersnapper that you won't be listening to because you have already written my algorithms better before I learned to crawl. The context helps, since I am far from convinced this is a good attitude for programmers (especially my coworkers) to adopt.

edw519 16y ago
Can you elaborate on this a little? Let me put it this way... If you gave me a page of your code and asked for feedback, I would return it with 50 red marks on it. If you gave it to me a second time, there would still be 50 red marks, but most of them would have you changing it back to the way it was in the first place. The point is that any programmer can give endless feedback to any other programmer based on a sample of code. In my experience, 90% of that feedback was flat out wrong, and the other 10% was a waste of time. I prefer learning new things the way I have for years now. When I see something cool, either as a user or by looking at the code, I figure out what was done and how I'd like to do it (rarely keeping 100% of it), and then incorporate that into my own style. Having others look at my code has never delivered much value. This may seem like ego, but it's not. It's just a matter of what works best.
- tjr 16y ago
  Having others look at my code has never delivered much value. Maybe not much value for you, but after enjoying your many insightful comments on this site, I suspect that I would learn a lot by looking at your code. :-)
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    EDIT: (Ignore this. It's wrong, and I should have been more polite anyway. I'm leaving it to teach myself a lesson about being hasty...) If you understood his point, you wouldn't say that. Not that I agree with Ed on this, 95% of my code is published. But still.
    - tjr 16y ago
      He himself says that he learns by looking at others' code. Perhaps I don't understand his point.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        ... or perhaps I read it too quickly. Which going back over it, seems to be the case. My bad!