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Doing the thing is doing the thing

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Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#161

Post by tolerance »

This version has the general form of the original, So why does it seem there is something odd about it?

Whoever the guy from ‘Strangest Loop’ is it’s my impression that it’s meant to resonate with self-starters; as if he’s speaking from that vantage of and for hustle culture. The grinders. The movers. The seniors. The managers. The founders. [1]

I don’t get that vibe from this derivative and in fact I think it carries a slight affect of a neurotic employee while the original airs determination. Reading this brings one into the mind of an observer, the founder of a VC firm, watching OP wring over a Palo Alto brewed latte.

[1] Am I the only one who was unable to find out his actual name on this website?

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#163

Post by Terretta »

A_Venom_Roll wrote: post #123
jackfranklyn wrote: post #77

[flagged]

While I do agree with the content, this tone of writing feels awfully similar to LLM generated posts that flood some productivity subreddits recently. Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? I don't buy that. Commenter's history is full of 'red flags': - "The real cost of this complexity isn't the code itself - it's onboarding" - "This…

> The tone of writing feels awfully similar to LLM.

This particular piece is LinkedIn “copy pasta” with many verbatim or mildly variant copies.

Example: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chriswillx_preparing-to-do-th...

And in turn, see: https://strangestloop.io/essays/things-that-arent-doing-the-...

Relatedly, LLMs clearly picked the "LinkedIn influencer" style up.

My guess is some cross-over between those who write this way on LinkedIn and those who engage with chatbot A/B testing or sign up for the human reinforcement learning / fine tuning / tagging jobs, training in a preference for it.

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#164

Post by maerch »

dspillett wrote: post #138
A_Venom_Roll wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I do agree with the content, this tone of writing feels awfully similar to LLM generated posts that flood some productivity subreddits recently. Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? I don't buy that. Commenter's history is full of 'red flags': - "The real cost of this complexity isn't the code itself - it's onboarding" - "This…

> Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? Probably. I've been known to spend weeks planning something that I then forget and leave completely unstarted because other things took my attention! > Commenter's history is full of 'red flags' I wonder how much these red flags are starting to change how people write without LLMs, to avoid bei…

It’s already happening. This came up in a webinar attended by someone from our sales team:

> "A typo or two also helps to show it’s not AI (one of the biggest issues right now)."

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#165

Post by abadar »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #154
obruchez wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? I don't buy that. I understand that it's not the main point in your comment (you're trying to determine if the parent comment was written using an LLM), but yes, we do exist: I've spent years planning personal projects that remain unimplemented. Don't underestimate the power of procrastination…

Fascinating how differently people can work. My struggle is having enough patience to do any planning before I start building. As soon as there's even the remote hint of a half-baked idea in my head, it's incredibly tempting to just start building and figure out stuff as I go along.

I totally get that. I have a super corpo buddy who tells me every project is 80% planning and he uses that philosophy for his personal projects. That makes sense for a huge company.

I resist working like that because I am mega ignorant and I know I will encounter problems that I won't recognize until I get to them.

But, I also HATE having to rework my projects because of something I overlooked.

My (attempted) solution is to slog through a chat with an AI to build a Project Requirements Document and to answer every question it asks about my blindspots. It mostly helps build stuff. And sometimes the friction prevents me from overloading myself with more unfinished projects!

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#166

Post by grvdrm »

jackfranklyn wrote: post #77

[flagged]

> The hardest part is giving yourself permission to ship something you know is flawed. But the feedback loop from real usage is worth more than weeks of hypothetical architecture debates.

Nice statement.

I think there is another equally pervasive problem: balancing between shipping something and strategizing a complete "operating system" but in the eyes of OTHER stakeholders.

I'm in this muck now. Working with an insurance co that's building internal tools. On one had we have a COO that wants an operating model for everything and what feels like strategy/process diagrams as proof of work.

Meanwhile I am encouraging not overplanning and instead building stuff, shipping, seeing what works, iterating, etc.

But that latter version causes anxiety as people "don't know what you're doing" when, in fact, you're doing plenty but it's just not the slide-deck-material things and instead the tangible work.

There is a communication component too, of course. Almost an entirely separate discipline.

I've never arrived at acceptable comfort on either side of this debate but lean towards "perfect is the enemy of good enough"

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#167

Post by jdefr89 »

mojuba wrote: post #53

> Doing it badly is doing the thing. No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing. I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.

Oh.. So you start doing something new and you're top 10% without practicing or being bad at it first? I'd love to test that to see if it's the case... Your logic is "You're not the best ever to do something so you are not doing it" means you have probably never done a single thing your entire life. Maybe you should just stop.

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#168

Post by jdefr89 »

scandox wrote: post #58
mojuba wrote: post #53

> Doing it badly is doing the thing. No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing. I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.

Yeah the dude should have stopped doing what he liked

All because this dude is the ultimate judge for all that is good and worth doing somehow..

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#169

Post by lufenialif2 »

maerch wrote: post #164
dspillett wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? Probably. I've been known to spend weeks planning something that I then forget and leave completely unstarted because other things took my attention! > Commenter's history is full of 'red flags' I wonder how much these red flags are starting to change how people write without LLMs, to avoid bei…

It’s already happening. This came up in a webinar attended by someone from our sales team: > "A typo or two also helps to show it’s not AI (one of the biggest issues right now)."

When it comes to forum posts, I think getting to the point quickly makes something worth reading whether or not it’s AI generated.

The best marketing is usually brief.

Re: Doing the thing is doing the thing

#170

Post by lufenialif2 »

bodge5000 wrote: post #139
A_Venom_Roll wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I do agree with the content, this tone of writing feels awfully similar to LLM generated posts that flood some productivity subreddits recently. Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? I don't buy that. Commenter's history is full of 'red flags': - "The real cost of this complexity isn't the code itself - it's onboarding" - "This…

> Are there really people who "spend weeks planning the perfect architecture" to build some automation tools for themselves? Ironically, I see this very often with AI/vibe coding, and whilst it does happen with traditional coding too, it happens with AI to an extreme degree. Spend 5 minutes on twitter and you'll see a load of people talking about their insane new vibe coding setup and next to nothing of what they're…

Still would love to see somebody with a fresh install of windows set up their vibe coding suite and then build something worthwhile.
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