A tattered sign hanging over Chesterton's fence: this way lie blunders.
Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
11–20 of 228 posts
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#12So it's not "ok to fail" this week?
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#13This effect is why I am like 10 times as effective working 1/10 as much as in my younger years in my career. You can only afford to work fast when not in a hurry. If I also take credit for work I've not done I am probably a 1000x dev. Multi year projects shut down in under a hour before they became any trouble.
Creating code is the lowest level of programming.
Deleting code is much more refined.
Preventing code is sublime.
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#14So it's not "ok to fail" this week?
It is ok for others to fail, don't put pressure on them. It isn't ok for you yourself to fail, put pressure on yourself, at least if you want to outdo others.
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#15Also luck is probably a much larger factor than most people realize. It's not just bad luck leading to failure, but luck leading to customers/revenue.
As an example, if no one is competing with you, it doesn't matter too much how good you are.
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#16The general message reminds me of both
"95th percentile isn't that hard to reach" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22265197 / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38560345)
and "How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38686997)
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blunders are things you _could_ or _should_ have avoided, had you only taken a moment to pause and think.
By "blunders", the author includes both those which can be prevented (see section "Preventable blunders") and those which can't. This is one of the reasons this article is silly. Next in the series is, "Avoid accidents: 80% of being a good driver."
To be fair, you could stop calling them accidents. "Avoiding collisions" does sound like it will get you to 80% of being a good driver.
Like the author, I also play chess, and I could have written the same advice. Maybe the charitable take here is "Don't worry about long term plans so much, at least until you manage to stop making trivial mistakes, evaluated looking retro-actively at decisions you made."
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#18This effect is why I am like 10 times as effective working 1/10 as much as in my younger years in my career. You can only afford to work fast when not in a hurry. If I also take credit for work I've not done I am probably a 1000x dev. Multi year projects shut down in under a hour before they became any trouble.
Creating code is the lowest level of programming. Deleting code is much more refined. Preventing code is sublime.
This leads to analysis paralysis. Building things helps you think clearer.
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#19This effect is why I am like 10 times as effective working 1/10 as much as in my younger years in my career. You can only afford to work fast when not in a hurry. If I also take credit for work I've not done I am probably a 1000x dev. Multi year projects shut down in under a hour before they became any trouble.
Creating code is the lowest level of programming. Deleting code is much more refined. Preventing code is sublime.
Love this, I’m going to steal it
Re: Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
#20This effect is why I am like 10 times as effective working 1/10 as much as in my younger years in my career. You can only afford to work fast when not in a hurry. If I also take credit for work I've not done I am probably a 1000x dev. Multi year projects shut down in under a hour before they became any trouble.
Creating code is the lowest level of programming. Deleting code is much more refined. Preventing code is sublime.
Is this true?
I find creating, then deleting to be more grounding. Explore a couple paths and pick the good one, don’t just stay home.