81–90 of 213 posts
I think the tension between perfectionism and pragmatism is intrinsic to programming. You need some perfectionism to be able to do it, but there's no limit to how overperfectionistic you can be.
20 years ago, the "pragmatic programmer" addressed this issue. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pragmatic_Programmer
What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…
You forgot to mention millions of dollars of value created for other people.
I recommend "The War of Art". For me it holds up to multiple readings and gives me a kick in the pants each time. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art
I read this based on some HN comments, I found it to be pretty motivational but not much else. Was there anything else you gained from it that I may have skipped?
I’d say it’s examples of game theory, that worked, without any sort of sense of game theory existing. It’s kind of the root of a weird synthesized way of thinking about the world.
What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…
Being grateful makes perfect sense. But being satisfied with just that sees a bit of a waste. Perhaps even a bit ungrateful. Should I be satisfied if my headstone says simply "I was comfortable"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing Paul Graham has never restored a beat up car to pristine condition. Your pristine condition car that will fetch you less than the new parts you put in when you sell it at what the market will pay for it. Restoring beat up cars to new state is a losing game unless someone pays you to do the work, except for some rare collectibles, which I am assuming are not your personal beat up car. And even then chance…
I interpret it the opposite from you. Sure you probably won’t make a lucrative living restoring an old car but over time the value will go up. The lesson is more about putting in work that builds value, self actualization and doing something gratifying. I do this with land/property. Sure I could hire a dozer operator to clear it all but the time I’ve spent manually as well as renting a mini excavator for a small pric…
I realize this is missing the point, but this is why one should pick metaphors carefully.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing Paul Graham has never restored a beat up car to pristine condition. Your pristine condition car that will fetch you less than the new parts you put in when you sell it at what the market will pay for it. Restoring beat up cars to new state is a losing game unless someone pays you to do the work, except for some rare collectibles, which I am assuming are not your personal beat up car. And even then chance…
As with all car analogies, this is NOT about cars - it's telling a story about wealth creation...
What is this obsessions with leaving something behind, or doing something noteworthy? Be selfish. Programming is my selfish pleasure; I love it therefore I do it. Just remember, we are a tiny, insignificant speck in the history of our own planet, let alone the universe. If you truly believe you can improve people's lives with code, go do that. But don't make it about proving yourself to other people, or creating a la…
>>What is this obsessions with leaving something behind, or doing something noteworthy? Be selfish. No, fuck that. Most of the world's problems are caused by selfish assholes.
What is this obsessions with leaving something behind, or doing something noteworthy? Be selfish. Programming is my selfish pleasure; I love it therefore I do it. Just remember, we are a tiny, insignificant speck in the history of our own planet, let alone the universe. If you truly believe you can improve people's lives with code, go do that. But don't make it about proving yourself to other people, or creating a la…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being grateful makes perfect sense. But being satisfied with just that sees a bit of a waste. Perhaps even a bit ungrateful. Should I be satisfied if my headstone says simply "I was comfortable"?
What's wrong with being comfortable though? Why should one be dissatisfied with being satisfied? Is satisfaction ever OK? And if so, when? When can you know for sure that you've actualized your full potential? Is it even something that's knowable? This seems overly omniscient to me. I see this fearful, regret-filled ethos driving a lot of my peers and the western culture at large and I worry about the mindset it inst…
I've worked blue collar and white collar jobs, and it was the blue collar jobs that made me feel more alive, because I was around dangerous tools, hazards, and actuating my body like it was supposed to be outside exposed to the elements. I went home after and my rest felt deserved and truly regenerative, like my body was drinking it in. The white collar work, though it pays better and offers more comfort and is more cognitively demanding, feels at the same time too breezy, too safe.
It seems like a really stupid argument, that things can be bad because they're too good, affluenza and so on, but there's something to it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being grateful makes perfect sense. But being satisfied with just that sees a bit of a waste. Perhaps even a bit ungrateful. Should I be satisfied if my headstone says simply "I was comfortable"?
What's wrong with being comfortable though? Why should one be dissatisfied with being satisfied? Is satisfaction ever OK? And if so, when? When can you know for sure that you've actualized your full potential? Is it even something that's knowable? This seems overly omniscient to me. I see this fearful, regret-filled ethos driving a lot of my peers and the western culture at large and I worry about the mindset it inst…
Maybe you have a good job, but feel like your career isn't going anywhere, but rather than switching to a different role you stay where you are because you like it there. That's comfort.
Plus a lot of people over think what comfort they need and waste a lot of energy on it. Theres a photo of Steve Jobs from the 80s in an empty apartment with a few possessions, where apparently he is comfortable with living like that. I don't know exactly what the story is with the photo, and it's a bit of an extreme example, but imagine instead of working on building his company, he spent his sparetime assembling IKEA furniture, then buying a TV and VHS recorder, then renting movies from the movie store (and physically taking them back).