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Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

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Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#21

Post by wingerlang »

jsharpe wrote: post #10

This reminds me of babies. A lot of people assume that changing diapers or sleep deprivation is the hard part of having a baby. For me, though, the hard part is actually just that babies are kind of boring, and the boringness of having to watch them constantly grinds you down. That definitely wasn't what I was expecting to be hard when considering whether to have a baby. (Fortunately they get more interesting over ti…

Maybe this is "horrible", but can't you just use some kinda leash? Let's say you leash the baby, within your field of view obviously, then you do whatever you feel like.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#22

Post by illivah »

jsharpe wrote: post #10

This reminds me of babies. A lot of people assume that changing diapers or sleep deprivation is the hard part of having a baby. For me, though, the hard part is actually just that babies are kind of boring, and the boringness of having to watch them constantly grinds you down. That definitely wasn't what I was expecting to be hard when considering whether to have a baby. (Fortunately they get more interesting over ti…

My kids aren't that old yet, but "interesting" is a still a good description. The world through the eyes of a 3 year old is pretty comical.

Dinosaurs? the best thing in the world. We don't have enough toys, books, and videos even available to us to satisfy. Toy tools? he's "fixing" everything. Usually with brute force. Toy pliers broke, so toy saw was tried and found to be a far superior tool for everything. It is a better hammer, better wedge, better saw, and better chisel than any other piece of plastic in his arsenal.

Then again, the level of intelligence is hilariously lacking. I mean, he's 3, what do you expect? Either way, you have to choose your activities carefully so that you can watch them without becoming a sleep-deprived under-stimulated zombie.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#23

Post by illivah »

bfaviero wrote: post #8

This is honestly how I felt about shaving with a straight razor. Everyone I spoke to about it was like "you're crazy! you'll cut yourself. At the very least use a safety razor to warm up to something like that." I had a gift card to Art of Shaving, and bought a shavette. Two weeks in, I haven't cut myself once, and I shave faster and better than I ever have.

you never cut yourself? Parts of my neck were nicked repeatedly in the first month. Most interesting part was that not once did it actually hurt, it was just that sharp.

Still though, the blade price alone makes the effort worth it. Plus I had a few solid months of a feeling of superior manliness, and the glory of using a shaving brush has yet to wear off in the last year and a half. How did I go years without using a shaving brush?

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#24

Post by stefanix »

wingerlang wrote: post #21
jsharpe wrote: post #10

This reminds me of babies. A lot of people assume that changing diapers or sleep deprivation is the hard part of having a baby. For me, though, the hard part is actually just that babies are kind of boring, and the boringness of having to watch them constantly grinds you down. That definitely wasn't what I was expecting to be hard when considering whether to have a baby. (Fortunately they get more interesting over ti…

Maybe this is "horrible", but can't you just use some kinda leash? Let's say you leash the baby, within your field of view obviously, then you do whatever you feel like.

LOL. Babies have an amazing ability to end themselves even without adding robe-like object to the mix.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#25

Post by ajuc »

eternal_intern wrote: post #3

I feel like this is good advice but presents only one side of the coin. Underestimating how difficult something is, is exactly what leads to ''planning fallacy''. I would rather err on the side of caution and overestimate how difficult something is

In my experience it's usually not as tricky as predicted, but requires more boilerplate, cleaning and communication with other people, so it takes more time than predicted.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#26

Post by HerpDerpLerp »

orionblastar wrote: post #15
copperx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's also the same when coding, the hard parts are not always where I expect them to be. As you may know, this also applies to optimizing code. The 'hot' parts of the code are very often things that you don't expect.

The hard part of optimizing code is to find areas were your code is weak at and taking too long to do something. In my best practices and I learned this from a video by Grace Hopper, is to use less code to do the same thing. Less code takes up less memory and usually runs faster. Just writing code and then compiling it without any errors doesn't mean it is done. You still have to optimize it and do security checks as…

Less code is not really that important anymore (within sensible bounds) Clarity to whatever poor shmo has to maintain it is often much more important than saving 5 lines with some clever bit twiddling hack.

Unless of course you are having performance issues and you have identified this code block as the issue.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#27

Post by reacweb »

jsharpe wrote: post #10

This reminds me of babies. A lot of people assume that changing diapers or sleep deprivation is the hard part of having a baby. For me, though, the hard part is actually just that babies are kind of boring, and the boringness of having to watch them constantly grinds you down. That definitely wasn't what I was expecting to be hard when considering whether to have a baby. (Fortunately they get more interesting over ti…

"boringness of having to watch them constantly". My third child is 2 and he is not boring. He is very creative. I think the problem is "watch them constantly". This is a source of frustration for us as parent (we have so many other things to do) and not good for them (not socializing). I think it is useful to delegate to nursery and to be available to play with our children when they are back home.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#28

Post by w0utert »

HerpDerpLerp wrote: post #26
orionblastar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard part of optimizing code is to find areas were your code is weak at and taking too long to do something. In my best practices and I learned this from a video by Grace Hopper, is to use less code to do the same thing. Less code takes up less memory and usually runs faster. Just writing code and then compiling it without any errors doesn't mean it is done. You still have to optimize it and do security checks as…

Less code is not really that important anymore (within sensible bounds) Clarity to whatever poor shmo has to maintain it is often much more important than saving 5 lines with some clever bit twiddling hack. Unless of course you are having performance issues and you have identified this code block as the issue.

>> Less code is not really that important anymore (within sensible bounds) Clarity to whatever poor shmo has to maintain it is often much more important than saving 5 lines with some clever bit twiddling hack.

I don't think many people will advocate reducing line count by stuffing the same processing into fewer lines using clever tricks. What should always be considered a good thing though, is cutting down on the line count by changing the algorithm/strategy, using better suited data structures, by trying to 'do less' and get the same result, not trying to support every thinkable corner case you will never run into, by preferring multiple simple implementations of the same thing for different corner cases, over one single complex kitchen-sink solution, by not re-inventing the wheel and using tried & tested libraries/frameworks, etc.

I know it sounds like a terrible cliche, but any line you don't write, is a line that can't contain bugs ;-). Over the years I've learned that almost always, simplicity is preferred over complexity, even if it implies a little bit of duplication, or an implementation that is 'less awesome' because it 'only' does what is needed for the application.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#29

Post by corobo »

reacweb wrote: post #27
jsharpe wrote: post #10

This reminds me of babies. A lot of people assume that changing diapers or sleep deprivation is the hard part of having a baby. For me, though, the hard part is actually just that babies are kind of boring, and the boringness of having to watch them constantly grinds you down. That definitely wasn't what I was expecting to be hard when considering whether to have a baby. (Fortunately they get more interesting over ti…

"boringness of having to watch them constantly". My third child is 2 and he is not boring. He is very creative. I think the problem is "watch them constantly". This is a source of frustration for us as parent (we have so many other things to do) and not good for them (not socializing). I think it is useful to delegate to nursery and to be available to play with our children when they are back home.

OP said babies not children. Speaking as an outsider babies are pretty boring for the first year or so.

Re: Don't Assume It's Difficult Until It Is

#30

Post by phyllostachys »

illivah wrote: post #23
bfaviero wrote: post #8

This is honestly how I felt about shaving with a straight razor. Everyone I spoke to about it was like "you're crazy! you'll cut yourself. At the very least use a safety razor to warm up to something like that." I had a gift card to Art of Shaving, and bought a shavette. Two weeks in, I haven't cut myself once, and I shave faster and better than I ever have.

you never cut yourself? Parts of my neck were nicked repeatedly in the first month. Most interesting part was that not once did it actually hurt, it was just that sharp. Still though, the blade price alone makes the effort worth it. Plus I had a few solid months of a feeling of superior manliness, and the glory of using a shaving brush has yet to wear off in the last year and a half. How did I go years without using…

For about the last year that I was in the military, I started using a shaving brush and safety razor. It was the best, though I usually had to shave twice (down then up) to get the closeness required of a military shave. Reading this and thinking back, perhaps I should have tried a straight razor. I never shave anymore so perhaps it could be something new to try.
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