man, this is so true. I have been working on a side project off and on for 5 years. sometimes I take months off, other I take 1 year, just to wait for right time...
This month I said f*ck it and started to work on it again.
Start before you think you’re ready
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Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#32Encourage others to take impossible risks. Theire failure and corpses build a bridge to your success. Try to see obnoxious "You-can-do-it-talks" not as ego-pumping, but as leveraging of stupid people into free R&D. Do not be first, find others who are stupid enough to develop and research for you- invest just enough, to become a goto adress once they are desperat- skin the carcasses. Be the general in the fifth row o…
Wear Sunscreen. But only if it's that coconut stuff that gives you cancer.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#33The question is prepare more vs take a shot. Rules of thumb advocating one versus the other are abound. Sun Tzu extols the virtue of more preparation to defeat the enemy before engaging, while also recommending the warrior that does not load his supply wagons twice nor wait for a second group of reinforcements. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, Faint heart never won fair lady etc. So there is advice advocatin…
Its almost as if reality is really complex and pithy slogans are useless for anything other than grandstanding because each situation needs to be appraised on its own terms
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#34Struggled with this a lot when I started studying foreign language. I spent way too much time deciding between Turkish, Russian or Japanese and trying to justify my decision with arbitrary metrics of usefulness. In the end I went with Japanese as I had the most interest in the culture, but then ran into another phase of paralysis by analysis in determining the most efficient study methods. Finally bought a "recommend…
I'm going through this now; I've wanted to learn Esperanto for awhile now, had similar experience going through YouTube trying to find the most optimal way of learning it, looking at reviews of different methods, when in reality I would have been better off choosing virtually any of the tutorials out there and just going with it. To those curious, I've settled on Duolingo just because I realized I should just choose…
Felicxajn studojn! Check out the KernPunkto podcast for themed audio, "Esperanto Variety Show" Youtube channel for vlog audio, and Reddit /r/Esperante for text shorter than a book, and the /r/Esperanto [1] Discord ("Diskordo" in the sidebar) for text chat, and very occasional voice chat, but I suspect other tools are better for that (Amikumu?).
[1] /r/Esperanto is about Esperanto the language, meta-commentary or learning, often discussed in English. /r/Esperante is any topic, where the content is in Esperanto.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#35The question is prepare more vs take a shot. Rules of thumb advocating one versus the other are abound. Sun Tzu extols the virtue of more preparation to defeat the enemy before engaging, while also recommending the warrior that does not load his supply wagons twice nor wait for a second group of reinforcements. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, Faint heart never won fair lady etc. So there is advice advocatin…
Its almost as if reality is really complex and pithy slogans are useless for anything other than grandstanding because each situation needs to be appraised on its own terms
Not totally useless, they help the less experienced understand what dimensions they should be thinking about:
- fast vs slow - big investment vs little - strong customer service vs Google-like "for the masses" customer service - focus on customers vs focus on employees
There are no silver bullets and no advice is always right.
But just talking it over can be useful, as opposed to diving in without even thinking.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#36Encourage others to take impossible risks. Theire failure and corpses build a bridge to your success. Try to see obnoxious "You-can-do-it-talks" not as ego-pumping, but as leveraging of stupid people into free R&D. Do not be first, find others who are stupid enough to develop and research for you- invest just enough, to become a goto adress once they are desperat- skin the carcasses. Be the general in the fifth row o…
Sounds like a depressing fantasy painted as brutal reality. Maybe an enticing belief for those of us here who are also depressed, but just a fantasy nonetheless.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#37Some people need a push to dive in, because they'll never feel ready. That's whom the article uses as examples.
OTHER people though, they know that, from where they are at now, they'll be past the "challenged" stage and be put into the "fear" response - overwhelmed, unable to make progress forward because the anxiety is crippling. The constant pushing from those who have been in the first group just makes the people in the second group feel worse.
We should all consider if we're delaying for good/effective/self-helping reasons, or if we're doing so for bad/ineffective/procrastination reasons, and then we should act appropriately.
And no one should shame anyone for their choices. Maybe the choice is wrong, maybe we're identifying ourselves as having the wrong quality of reasoning...but who would know better than ourselves?
Imposter Syndrome sucks - but the reality of it is no reason to cripple yourself by diving into situations you know you aren't ready for, and then flailing and validating the feelings you had.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the world of software, I think this counterpoint definitely applies. When faced with a new problem, especially when greenfielding, I sometimes have the impulse to just jump in and start writing code. Almost every time that I succumb to that impulse for a complex problem, I discover weird edge cases and lots of little issues which could have been avoided by further contemplation at the drawing board. Stated in a si…
I've also seen people do a ton of up front design, only for things to fall apart quickly during the implementation. I'm still largely a proponent of writing code sooner rather than later. Iterative development. Prove out concepts in isolation along the way. Rewrite and integrate as appropriate. But obviously you've got to do some upfront work, otherwise you might write custom software for things which have off the sh…
I find that as long as you start with the DB schema and core interfaces (system level rather than code level) and then move to framing out the general pillars of the code that you often will get 80-90% right. Refactoring will be a plenty but that is true in every project no matter the upfront planning. Just don't miss any edge cases which rewire your schema and you generally can keep a good pace on forward progress. Also it's generally true that the larger (see more complicated) the problem the more planning one should generally do.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#39deadlines help me, several of them.
Re: Start before you think you’re ready
#40I think the message of this article is a good one, perhaps not always applicable depending (of course) on the individual scenario and circumstances, but a worthwhile message nonetheless. I think a large part of whether or not it applies is the risk assessment. If the risk is extremely great should failure occur and there are not major time constraints, preparation should be careful and considered. As the idiom goes, "Fortune favors the prepared".
Many, like myself, have been struck by this particular paralysis of analysis, stuck in a studious stupefaction of research and preparation, in part due to fear of failure and in part due to never feeling prepared enough. My particular case is of pursuing the Red Hat Certified System Administrator certification. I have yet to take the exam, but have put in a fair bit of time of study with books and with online resources (some of which were paid subscriptions, like LinuxAcademy). Of course, the stakes aren't extremely high - if I were to fail, I'd be out $400. Not a huge amount of money but not small change either. Needless to say, I still want to get the certification but have yet to motivate myself to commit to it. Suffice it to say, I'm one of those people that thrives and prospers under deadlines, whether said deadlines are artificial or are a true limitation on my window of preparation.