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For more stories from the kitchen, perseverance, entrepreneurship and debauchery, I highly recommend Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential. http://www.a

• wpietri 14y ago
  Yes, yes, yes. It contains this chunk of text that is perfectly applicable to coding: If you let your mise-en-place [your working area, your setup] run down, get dirty and disorganized, you'll quickly find yourself spinning in place and calling for backup. I worked with a chef who used to step behind the line to a dirty cook's station in the middle of the rush to explain why the offending cook was falling behind. He'd press his palm down on the cutting board, which was littered with peppercorns, spattered sauce, bits of parsley, breadcrumbs, and the usual flotsam and jetsam that accumulates quickly on a station if not constantly wiped away with a moist side-towel. "You see this?" he'd inquire, raising his palm so that the cook could see the bits of dirt and scraps sticking to his chef's palm, "That's what the inside of your head looks like now. Work clean!" Any time I catch myself trying to rush through some piece of tricky coding, Bourdain's chef steps behind me and says, "Work clean!"
  • anchorsteam 14y ago
    He's right. Constantly redressing entropy keeps your mind free for the big picture once it's time to make hay.