4 ms·

While I agree with your summary I think the OP brushes against another point I think is really important: a large number of users do not care to optimize their

by tmpz22 7y ago

While I agree with your summary I think the OP brushes against another point I think is really important: a large number of users do not care to optimize their own experience for ~some~ reason, even when the lack of optimization has a significant opportunity cost. As software developers we pull our hair out trying to architect around this issue... and we usually fail hard. I could guess an infinity of potential causes, but if anyone has a concise answer to how to avoid the phenomenon please comment.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
> a large number of users do not care to optimize their own experience for ~some~ reason, even when the lack of optimization has a significant opportunity cost. A large proportion of people don’t even optimize their bedroom, and probably a huge proportion for teens and young adults. It’s lack of caring about long term benefits and focusing on short term benefits. Or laziness. Or procrastination. Or whatever you want to call it. You can spend some time now to make the future easier, or you can enjoy the time now and deal with the future later.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  “A large proportion of people don’t even optimize their bedroom, and probably a huge proportion for teens and young adults. It’s lack of caring about long term benefits and focusing on short term benefits. Or laziness. Or procrastination. Or whatever you want to call it.” maybe they think they have more important things to worry about?
- egypturnash 7y ago
  How exactly does one optimize their bedroom anyway?
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I meant keeping it organized or clean.
porknubbins 7y ago
I never change default settings like remapping keys on IDEs and things, of course I use plugins but I always learn the defaults because its way too much of a pain to re-customize every version between all my machines at work home and VMs, if I can even remember the settings.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  Indeed. Younger me used to customize everything to taste. Custom toolbars, custom keybindings for videogames, custom command prompt, custom everything. Current me doesn't care so much that I ran my phone with the default ringtone and wallpaper for years. After years of setting up everything to perfect only have it wiped out by disk failures, OS reinstalls, tinkering, hacking, and bad luck (to say nothing of how many environments a computer professional has to work with and re-customize), I just stopped caring. I absolutely hate having to customize shit now; much easier to learn to roll with the defaults. Younger me would be so ashamed of me now
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    +1 Used to config the hell out of Conky and other desktop UI options on linux. Now I DGAF. Like, I spend all day doing IT and arguing about configs, far less desire to deal with it at home. Doubly so with a dog/wife/kids/friends/etc.
- judge2020 7y ago
  The farthest i'll go is changing everything to the keymap i'm familiar with, if possible. Thankfully the VS Code marketplace supports sharing premade keymaps :)
filoleg 7y ago
I mean, I, personally, also have some aspects of my life that I do not care for optimizing, even if the opportunity cost is significant. An example that should be relatable to a lot of people here is learning emacs. People who get over the steep learning curve argue that it is the best thing ever and how much more productive they can be with it. Considering how much time I spend writing code (both at work and at home), that would definitely net me a benefit. But I just don't care to put in all the work required to get over the learning curve, simply because the way I write my code now is good/productive enough to not care for putting that much effort into optimizing it much further (if the cost of doing so is as high as getting over the learning curve of emacs). tl;dr: to answer your question in one sentence, people don't care for optimizing something if it takes some sort of a significant investment, as long as what they have now is "good enough".

by tmpz22 7y ago

lotsofpulp 7y ago

> a large number of users do not care to optimize their own experience for ~some~ reason, even when the lack of optimization has a significant opportunity cost. A large proportion of people don’t even optimize their bedroom, and probably a huge proportion for teens and young adults. It’s lack of caring about long term benefits and focusing on short term benefits. Or laziness. Or procrastination. Or whatever you want to call it. You can spend some time now to make the future easier, or you can enjoy the time now and deal with the future later.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
“A large proportion of people don’t even optimize their bedroom, and probably a huge proportion for teens and young adults. It’s lack of caring about long term benefits and focusing on short term benefits. Or laziness. Or procrastination. Or whatever you want to call it.” maybe they think they have more important things to worry about?
egypturnash 7y ago
How exactly does one optimize their bedroom anyway?
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I meant keeping it organized or clean.

porknubbins 7y ago

I never change default settings like remapping keys on IDEs and things, of course I use plugins but I always learn the defaults because its way too much of a pain to re-customize every version between all my machines at work home and VMs, if I can even remember the settings.

tomc1985 7y ago
Indeed. Younger me used to customize everything to taste. Custom toolbars, custom keybindings for videogames, custom command prompt, custom everything. Current me doesn't care so much that I ran my phone with the default ringtone and wallpaper for years. After years of setting up everything to perfect only have it wiped out by disk failures, OS reinstalls, tinkering, hacking, and bad luck (to say nothing of how many environments a computer professional has to work with and re-customize), I just stopped caring. I absolutely hate having to customize shit now; much easier to learn to roll with the defaults. Younger me would be so ashamed of me now
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  +1 Used to config the hell out of Conky and other desktop UI options on linux. Now I DGAF. Like, I spend all day doing IT and arguing about configs, far less desire to deal with it at home. Doubly so with a dog/wife/kids/friends/etc.
judge2020 7y ago
The farthest i'll go is changing everything to the keymap i'm familiar with, if possible. Thankfully the VS Code marketplace supports sharing premade keymaps :)

filoleg 7y ago

I mean, I, personally, also have some aspects of my life that I do not care for optimizing, even if the opportunity cost is significant. An example that should be relatable to a lot of people here is learning emacs. People who get over the steep learning curve argue that it is the best thing ever and how much more productive they can be with it. Considering how much time I spend writing code (both at work and at home), that would definitely net me a benefit. But I just don't care to put in all the work required to get over the learning curve, simply because the way I write my code now is good/productive enough to not care for putting that much effort into optimizing it much further (if the cost of doing so is as high as getting over the learning curve of emacs). tl;dr: to answer your question in one sentence, people don't care for optimizing something if it takes some sort of a significant investment, as long as what they have now is "good enough".