51–60 of 177 posts
"when you punch someone you need to pull your arm back, before you launch it forward. If you don’t your hit will be weak." It's a cute way to think in opposites, but unfortunately as punching advice, it's untrue. Punch force comes from body mass x acceleration, not arm mass x acceleration.
Bruce Lee taught a martial arts technique that relied on not pulling back first - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-inch_punch
When I do dev stuff with a slight sense of urgency, the probability of my mind wandering somewhere else goes down drastically. At this mode, my mind uses all available time slots to make the best of them. For example, by the time my program compiles, my brain visualizes possible breakage scenarios and possible solutions, in case the compilation fails. I could be on confirmation bias here, but this seems to be a neat…
Yeah, but could it also increase risk of stress, anxiety, burnout?
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Yeah, but could it also increase risk of stress, anxiety, burnout?
True. Too much of anything is bad. I keep this mode on for as long as I don't get mentally tired. Usually, that's a span of 2-3 hours. Surprisingly, at the end of the day (typically after two/three of these zones) I feel more fresh, satisfied and productive. But that's just me.
Which is that all accomplishments are meaningless in the end. And we are just getting older. Once a person dies they aren’t experiencing any stuff that came as a result of their effort. They may as well have just messed around and had a family sooner, or traveled, or not. It’s all meaningless anyway.
I can’t shake it. Anyone felt this way all the time? Any advice?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Too much of anything is bad. I keep this mode on for as long as I don't get mentally tired. Usually, that's a span of 2-3 hours. Surprisingly, at the end of the day (typically after two/three of these zones) I feel more fresh, satisfied and productive. But that's just me.
Too much multitasking and producing software for years has made me feel this weird thing: Which is that all accomplishments are meaningless in the end. And we are just getting older. Once a person dies they aren’t experiencing any stuff that came as a result of their effort. They may as well have just messed around and had a family sooner, or traveled, or not. It’s all meaningless anyway. I can’t shake it. Anyone fel…
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Measure once, cut twice, earn one to throw away.
This is a bad analogy for software. One of the unique properties of software, compared to other crafts, is that the material cost of iteration is virtually zero. We should use that to our advantage instead of pretending we're carpenters.
In software the material cost is not the cost of a concrete material such as wood (like you mentioned) but developer time
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True. Too much of anything is bad. I keep this mode on for as long as I don't get mentally tired. Usually, that's a span of 2-3 hours. Surprisingly, at the end of the day (typically after two/three of these zones) I feel more fresh, satisfied and productive. But that's just me.
Too much multitasking and producing software for years has made me feel this weird thing: Which is that all accomplishments are meaningless in the end. And we are just getting older. Once a person dies they aren’t experiencing any stuff that came as a result of their effort. They may as well have just messed around and had a family sooner, or traveled, or not. It’s all meaningless anyway. I can’t shake it. Anyone fel…
As for me, Yes, I might pick traveling and having fun over creating software. But I'm not from a wealthy background and my need for a better quality of life is satisfied by selling my skill for money. In that sense, I picked long-term quality of life over short bursts of fun and happiness.
Also, I do have fun coding so it's kind of alright for me.
When I do dev stuff with a slight sense of urgency, the probability of my mind wandering somewhere else goes down drastically. At this mode, my mind uses all available time slots to make the best of them. For example, by the time my program compiles, my brain visualizes possible breakage scenarios and possible solutions, in case the compilation fails. I could be on confirmation bias here, but this seems to be a neat…
Yeah, but could it also increase risk of stress, anxiety, burnout?
Where anxiety and stress can come in for me is letting unsolvable, abstract-ish things hound me for a long time: "I have made a big mistake in life N years ago", etc.
Where I think urgency is hurting is breadth: I focus only on the easiest solution and long term view goes out the window so I need to intersperse walking or similar to let my mind wander to strange, stupid or potentially good ideas. Just my 2c, YMMV.
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Not ideal, but mistakes and experiments seem to be the best way people learn.
There's nothing wrong with making mistakes in experiments . However, when you're building financial systems, there's absolutely no room for mistakes.
Developing on a live fintech system is a different kettle of fish