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I find it painful to be smart enough to come up with ideas like this independently but not enough smart/knowledgeable to implement it without being preempted by

I find it painful to be smart enough to come up with ideas like this independently but not enough smart/knowledgeable to implement it without being preempted by a few or several years by another project. Will I ever reach a level of proficiency where I'm content with my skillset, and would that even be desirable?

kaens 18y ago
I don't think that being content with your skillset is desirable. Being competent with your skillset is, being content with what you are able to accomplish with your skillset is, but not being content with it - at least not in the areas of software for the foreseeable future.
utx00 18y ago
did you look at the source? it's like 200 lines. basically key shortcuts to mplayer operations. you could have done it in a couple of days (less if you know elisp). but my point is that everything starts small. so just start ;) incidentally for truly impressive emacs packages check out: gnus, erc, slime, org-mode, tramp, magit, ido, paredit, nxhtml, yasnippet.
- rayvega 18y ago
  Agreed. I'd probably reverse Hexstream's comment in that I find it much harder to think up good ideas than actually implementing them. It just never would have occurred to me to use Emacs as a video editor (my brain has been conditioned to think of it strictly as a text editor). If that idea had popped in my head then implementing it, relatively speaking, would probably have been less of a challenge than coming up with the actual idea in the first place which requires overcoming my preconceived notions. In this instance, the idea is far more impressive than the actual code. This demonstrates innovation beyond technical prowess because it added a new way of doing something to a familiar software tool that most people would never have thought of.
- Hexstream 18y ago
  Oh wow. I just looked at the source. It's incredible what you can do sometimes with just a bit of integration!

kaens 18y ago

I don't think that being content with your skillset is desirable. Being competent with your skillset is, being content with what you are able to accomplish with your skillset is, but not being content with it - at least not in the areas of software for the foreseeable future.

utx00 18y ago

did you look at the source? it's like 200 lines. basically key shortcuts to mplayer operations. you could have done it in a couple of days (less if you know elisp). but my point is that everything starts small. so just start ;) incidentally for truly impressive emacs packages check out: gnus, erc, slime, org-mode, tramp, magit, ido, paredit, nxhtml, yasnippet.

rayvega 18y ago
Agreed. I'd probably reverse Hexstream's comment in that I find it much harder to think up good ideas than actually implementing them. It just never would have occurred to me to use Emacs as a video editor (my brain has been conditioned to think of it strictly as a text editor). If that idea had popped in my head then implementing it, relatively speaking, would probably have been less of a challenge than coming up with the actual idea in the first place which requires overcoming my preconceived notions. In this instance, the idea is far more impressive than the actual code. This demonstrates innovation beyond technical prowess because it added a new way of doing something to a familiar software tool that most people would never have thought of.
Hexstream 18y ago
Oh wow. I just looked at the source. It's incredible what you can do sometimes with just a bit of integration!