"He who rests while other people work with their heads, hands, and hearts is a capitalist".
That quote certainly describes my view of the legacy of Steve Jobs at the cold, pragmatic core.
I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
51–60 of 128 posts
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always worried that it's not great for me professionally. Because the "cool kids" are always off learning the hot new thing, and I can do what I need to in the "old" thing, and so I don't learn the hot new thing. Aren't I, as an engineer, supposed to be constantly entranced by the bleeding edge of technology? Whether it's the latest lisp Dialect, the latest functional programming language, the latest NoSQL databa…
You can build in the hot new thing though. I'm also a very practical learner. It's hard for me to pick up anything (whether it's a language, technique or a theory) without applying it. So to pick up new technologies I constantly cycle them into new projects.
I can, but I won't build in the hot new thing for the sake of the hot new thing alone.
What that tends to mean is that when I'm looking for a new job, my skills at old company are in old thing, while everyone is excited about hot new thing. This is typically most obvious with javascript libraries.
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#53Meanwhile, I've seen way too much code from people who're good at building things, but not engineering. And lost countless nights to keeping these rickety structures alive long enough that we could fix the most egregious issues.
Sure, build something, anything, to show it can be done. THEN MAKE SURE ITS ACTUALLY STABLE.
And then realize that building stuff, and understanding how to build it well, both matter.
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#54Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not integrate new things to learn with a fun side project?
coming up with side projects is difficult.
Yeah, this is my problem as well. I have a really hard time coming up with ideas for a good side project, and then when I do, half the time I find out someone already implemented something like that and it feels like I'm just pointlessly reinventing the wheel.
I think I need to do a better job of reminding myself that it's not pointless as long as I learn something.
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#56"He who rests while other people work with their heads, hands, and hearts is a capitalist".
That quote certainly describes my view of the legacy of Steve Jobs at the cold, pragmatic core.
>Steve Jobs at the cold, pragmatic core.
This is probably the best description of what we see of him that I have ever seen. Combine that with his verbal judo and one should not be shocked that he was successful.
But I don't think his legacy is one of resting.
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#57"He who rests while other people work with their heads, hands, and hearts is a capitalist".
That quote certainly describes my view of the legacy of Steve Jobs at the cold, pragmatic core.
Just because a CEO spends their day making high-level decisions because they are literally delegating tasks to tens of thousands of people doesn't mean that they are "resting".
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#58> When I try to build something new, I find myself instantly criticizing my technique, to the point of paralysis. This function is hard to test; this object's dependencies need to be injected rather than initialized internally; that module needs an integration test; and so on and so forth. Even when writing spike or proof of concept code, I find myself revisiting the same lines over and over again, looking for the be…
I'm naturally a perfectionist, so I fall into this trap often, though I've gotten better over time. I rely on a few simple tricks (ugh, the buzzfeed headline practically writes itself): 1. If I'm stuck and can't decide which path to take, it's usually because I don't have enough data to tell which path is better. The fastest way to get that data is to pick one path arbitrarily and start walking down it. Pretty soon,…
I frequently use TODOs and I don't get crazy if I don't go back and do all the TODOs. Some seem important at the time and become less so with age. Others become more important.
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#59"He who rests while other people work with their heads, hands, and hearts is a capitalist".
Wages of labor, interest of time, rent of land, profit of mind.
(German: Löhne der Arbeit, Zinsen der Zeit, Miete des Landes, Profit des Verstandes)
Re: I'm a good engineer but I suck at building stuff
#60"He who rests while other people work with their heads, hands, and hearts is a capitalist".
That quote certainly describes my view of the legacy of Steve Jobs at the cold, pragmatic core.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking that it was only Steve Jobs. He just happened to be more visible than most.