Be prolific
chrismytton.com
Be prolific
1–10 of 134 posts
Re: Be prolific
#2It's the same with software I imagine, because of several reasons.
1. Writing more code (and being conscious of it) makes you a better engineer. You'll run into more issues that you will fix and, hopefully, remember.
2. If you'd take the art example and say "Paint 20 cubist pieces", and then transfer that to "Write 20 authentication servers", each iteration you'll benefit from what you learned and be able to 'clean up' the code. It's essentially writing 20 PoCs where each PoC improves on the last one.
EDIT: Writing more versions also allows you to explore more ideas without fear. If you have to write "one good version" you'll be less prone to exploring 'exotic' ideas. So you'd benefit from that as well.
Re: Be prolific
#3While "practice makes perfect" is not a very new idea, it is still nice to be reminded about it from time to time.
Re: Be prolific
#4I'm reasonably sure that it was a pottery class (or study) in which students/study participants were asked to produce either the best piece they could think of or as many as possible. I think it was actually a study that I read about.
It might need some internet sleuthing to find it. I'll try later.
I do not think that it is surprising that practice improves skills though (well, except for people with an exceptionally fixed mindset ;).
(For today's lucky Ten Thousand, "fixed mindset" refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset#Fixed_and_Growth_Minds... )
(For today's lucky Ten Thousand, "today's lucky Ten Thousand" refers to https://xkcd.com/1053/ )
Re: Be prolific
#5It's the same with software I imagine, because of several reasons. 1. Writing more code (and being conscious of it) makes you a better engineer. You'll run into more issues that you will fix and, hopefully, remember. 2. If you'd take the art example and say "Paint 20 cubist pieces", and then transfer that to "Write 20 authentication servers", each iteration you'll benefit from what you learned and be able to 'clean u…
Ad1. In my opinion it's the variety of problems an engineer has solved that matters. There are plenty of crud developers that are helpless whenever a more complex problem occurs, even though they did hundreds of crud pages in their life.
Re: Be prolific
#6I'm reasonably sure that it was a pottery class (or study) in which students/study participants were asked to produce either the best piece they could think of or as many as possible. I think it was actually a study that I read about. It might need some internet sleuthing to find it. I'll try later. I do not think that it is surprising that practice improves skills though (well, except for people with an exceptionall…
Here is an article discussing this:
https://medium.com/swlh/the-science-backed-secret-to-rapidly...
> On the first day of the class, the ceramics teacher divided the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the class, he announced, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
> The works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative designs, were all produced by the group graded for quantity.
Re: Be prolific
#7I'm reasonably sure that it was a pottery class (or study) in which students/study participants were asked to produce either the best piece they could think of or as many as possible. I think it was actually a study that I read about. It might need some internet sleuthing to find it. I'll try later. I do not think that it is surprising that practice improves skills though (well, except for people with an exceptionall…
I first saw it in Jeff Atwood's blog back in 2008:
https://blog.codinghorror.com/quantity-always-trumps-quality...
Re: Be prolific
#8A friend of mine is a sculptor. He once said something to me along the lines of "if you want to make the perfect sculpture, don't try to make the perfect sculpture. Instead make lots of sculptures, until you make the perfect sculpture." - which I tend to agree with.
His advice had more to do with enjoying the process instead of stressing about the end goal, which I quite liked.
In the context of software, I think that being prolific is certainly key, but it also helps to study the masters. I've learnt some pretty cool lessons reading the source code of popular OSS applications for example.
Re: Be prolific
#9It's the same with software I imagine, because of several reasons. 1. Writing more code (and being conscious of it) makes you a better engineer. You'll run into more issues that you will fix and, hopefully, remember. 2. If you'd take the art example and say "Paint 20 cubist pieces", and then transfer that to "Write 20 authentication servers", each iteration you'll benefit from what you learned and be able to 'clean u…
Ad1. In my opinion it's the variety of problems an engineer has solved that matters. There are plenty of crud developers that are helpless whenever a more complex problem occurs, even though they did hundreds of crud pages in their life.
This applies only if they’re learning. Learning devs who do 100s of CRUD pages will have a DSL and metaprogramming toolkit by the time they’re done. Those who don’t learn will do the same thing, like an artist making 100 copies of their own first painting, each copy more faithful than the last. Better to make a 100 versions of the same subject, each one better than the last.
Re: Be prolific
#10The definition of "creating more" is the elephant in the room. Do you stay focused on one subject, iterating multiple times over the result, in order to achieve incremental improvements? Do you explore a wide breadth of problems, giving you new perspectives on thinking about the problem at hand? Do you churn out mindless crap just for the sake of it?
It's a rather fuzzy and abstract philosophical notion and any attempts for an absolute framing of "the one single truth" are flawed.