The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything • Hacker News Board

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#61

Post by GardenLetter27 » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:06 AM UTC

This is well-written. I think LLMs can help a bit here too - the other day I was watching a rare, old film with my wife and the subtitles kept de-syncing. I.e. the frame-rate was slightly different as well as a fixed offset.

So I explained it to Claude and made it write a Python script where I could manually set a few fixed times and it would adjust the SRT file, and it worked perfectly.

I literally paused the film and did that in under 5 minutes. It was amazing.

So fixing a lot of small things has become easier at least.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#62

Post by urig » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #61

This is well-written. I think LLMs can help a bit here too - the other day I was watching a rare, old film with my wife and the subtitles kept de-syncing. I.e. the frame-rate was slightly different as well as a fixed offset. So I explained it to Claude and made it write a Python script where I could manually set a few fixed times and it would adjust the SRT file, and it worked perfectly. I literally paused the film a…

My takeaway from this post is not to find better ways to do, but to find a way not to.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#63

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:09 AM UTC

kmanraj wrote: post #56

TeMPOraL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this help explain why any simple household activity has a frustrating ~50% chance of turning into a string of dependencies and dependents that make you spend 10x the time you expected on it all? E.g. you figure it'll take a minute to take the trash out and wash your hands. But on the way you discover you run out of trash bags, and while washing your hands you run out of soap, then as you pick the refill bottle f…

What you've described is called "yak shaving", which is a series of neverending tasks that must be completed in order to complete the original task. It's apty named since shaving a hairy yak is a neverending task.

Right. I know the name (though it took me longer than I want to admit to connect the term with situations outside programming!) - what I now seek to know is, how to minimize it in personal life.

Letting go is probably most people's answer - nothing bad will happen if I do all the dependent tasks (cleanup, restocking things that just run out) later in the day - but I have difficulty getting them out of my head, they keep distracting me until they're completed.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#64

Post by lightyrs » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:09 AM UTC

Having kids is an excellent solution to this feeling. Besides occupying any time you used to have for unnecessary work, they have an uncanny ability to remind you just how little you actually control. However you get to the end of the OCD tunnel, the journey is often very worthwhile.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#65

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

WJW wrote: post #43

dmichulke wrote: post #16

Wow, great piece. We are playing software factorio and the winning move is not to play.

It's more like society factorio, but unlike factorio it's not fun and you're forced to play against people with much more resources and talent than you.

Also if you stumble and fall behind, you don't get to hit pause and plan your next steps carefully - that'll only make you fall behind even further.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#66

Post by clan » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

throw_away_0613 wrote: post #59

As I'm getting older, I want things to be as standardized as possible, and just don't worry about the details. I have learned from my mistakes The script I made for deployment, because existing solutions didn't "feel" right, required a lot of work and maintenance when we later had to add features and bug fixes. Another script I made for building and deploying Java applications, because I didn't like Maven and Puppet.…

I hope many people read this and take it to heart.

It is a rare and wise insight which only becomes crystal clear with age. Choose your battles very carefully.

This is a golden nugget up there with "time flies". I never understood that as a kid but really hits hard with your mid-life crisis.

Listen carefully little grasshoppers.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#67

Post by moffkalast » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:18 AM UTC

galbar wrote: post #51

erulabs wrote: post #42

Software engineers, I love yall. To see the light at the end of the tunnel. To see some glorious perfect paradigm that maybe could be. I envy you. I grew up in a datacenter. Leaky air conditioners and diesel generators. Open the big doors if it gets too hot. Now let’s go back. Back to when we didn’t know better. Software doesn’t stay solved. Every solution you write starts to rot the moment it exists. Everything, eve…

I have said many times to teammates: the only code that is perfect is the one that hasn't left our minds. The moment it's written down it becomes flawed and imperfect. This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it as good as we can, but rather that we must accept that the outcome will be flawed and that, despite our best intentions, it will show its sharp edges the next time we come to work on it.

I'm sure some mathematicians would disagree.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#68

Post by kunley » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:20 AM UTC

PixelForg wrote: post #52

Hopefully the future me is able to relate to this, because I really feel like I'm in a rut when it comes to working on personal projects. I have many ideas that I want to build, but I'd have to learn new languages, yet I just can't sit and go through the documentation every day like I should. Still haven't finished the rust book. The other way is start building already, and if you come across a block, then learn abou…

Very well said, to enjoy the process of writing the code.

I don't understand why so many people suddenly started to insist on taking this all away, and they totally seriously proposed to become a janitor of a hallucinated output of some overhyped tool. That's the most frustrating thing one can imagine about programming, yet people insist on it.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#69

Post by howtofly » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:21 AM UTC

Serious software development is rarely an individual endeavor; most issues should be resolved through collaboration. In other words, they should be addressed through management. What the author needs to overcome, in my view, is essentially a form of extreme individualism.

Re: The curse of knowing how, or; fixing everything

#70

Post by globular-toast » Tue, May 06, 2025, 9:27 AM UTC

figassis wrote: post #25

I too suffer from this, but as I learned, Nature built an elegant solution to this. Have a family and kids. Your choice when you have time off of work will be reduced to hacking or playing with your child that you have been neglecting due to a crunch at work. You’re welcome.

You don't need kids, just a partner who has a "normal" job and likes to do stuff on the evenings and weekends is enough. If you have a partner who also does thought work and tends towards the workaholic then things might be more difficult...