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Marc Clifton wrote: as well as the psychological difficulty of stopping
I feel this so hard. Even after sleep. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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I've known that feeling, but to me the risk is, as I feel I'm coming up for air, this is when I start to ease off and let the small things that I know need to be fixed fall through the cracks. I know the worst is done, so I can't be bothered with the minor stuff anymore...and in the end they never get fixed.
This is why every once in a while, even though I know I should be working on bigger/more important features, I'll take the time anyway (say, on a Friday afternoon) to fix the smaller things as I know otherwise they'll never be fixed, even if I find myself with all the time in the world.
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At least when it comes to my own projects I often shoot myself in the foot periodically by building a mountain of code before testing it (sometimes before compiling it) and then I *must* go back and fix.
And usually I get to the point where there are other big things dependent on the little things working correctly so I fix them.
This technique really shouldn't work, but it more or less does.
When I'm coding for others, it's actual work, and I treat it like work, so my habits are different.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I've been there often, writing or rewriting a ton of code without doing interim tests, because who wants to bother with incremental changes that will only be thrown away later anyway? So in the end, there's the remorse of long debugging sessions.
But different habits when doing "real work" isn't something that I can particularly relate to. I used to inspect my changes far more carefully, but that was because setting up a test environment was so painful that often I didn't bother. 
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Preferably in a work environment, there are standards in terms of checking in + unit testing
If there's not, and I'm in a lead role (which TBH I have been for maybe two decades whenever I'd doing this stuff) I'll try to implement those things, such that our build process enforces it.
Otherwise I'm hopeless because everything you wrote is relatable content, and then some.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Program managers' nightmare, or, devs' wet-dream ? [^]Quote: Our experiments revealed that asking “What can I add?” appears to be a cognitive default. It’s a shortcut that people use when, in the phrase popularized by the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, they’re “thinking fast.” When we used some tried-and-true methods to get people “thinking slow,” we found that they were more likely to ask “What can I add or subtract?”
Reminds me of the "feature creep" in Visual Studio, and C#, and, of the dev-flesh eating bacterial plague of web frameworks.
If only Dorothy could say to Toto: "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," instead of: [^]
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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I was just telling a friend the other day that I'm not impressed by complicated solutions to complicated problems.
I said I wrote a GLR parser, but after I was done it was like "meh"
The best solutions are simple.
The hardest to come up with solutions are simple.
The reason I know I'm not the smartest person in the room, is I very often do not come up with the simplest solution.
This is something I try to impress on people I'm teaching to code.
Your comment reminded me of that. Less is more. Simpler is smarter. Anyone can make a Rube Goldberg contraption that does a complicated task. It's hard to make a thing that does that same task simply, with elegance and finesse.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: The reason I know I'm not the smartest person in the room, is I very often do not come up with the simplest solution.
I'd say a habit of under-estimating one's own intelligence is a possible sign of intelligence (see Dunning-Kruger effect [^]) 
And, imho, it is often the case that working through a complex attempt at a solution, possibly recognizing the level of complexity has become unmanageable, non-performant, can lead to the "aha-satori" moment when the simpler strategy is salient.
I am absolutely certain you are very intelligent, and gifted 
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
modified 16-Apr-21 1:32am.
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Other people seem more certain of my intelligence than I am but that's okay. I just feel "regular". I'm always "normal" to me, - the crass hegemony of the mind I suppose.
At the end of the day, simplicity and elegance are the hallmark of exceptional code. I *have* written code like that at points - as I'm sure so many of us have, but usually I settle for less.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: I just feel "regular".
That's OK - those around your (dare I say us?) are decaying rapidly enough that it shows.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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honey the codewitch wrote: I just feel "regular".
That's OK - those around your (dare I say us?) are decaying rapidly enough that it shows.
honey the codewitch wrote: I'm always "normal" to me,
Wow! Two clever marks possible!
1 - The original source of "FWIW" even when it was written out
2 - OK, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves . . .
But - I'm content to solve simply if possible - a ball of tar if necessary. However, as my kudos to simplicity, I do prefer coding a solution that is as abstract from specific solutions as possible.
My OPUS MAGNUM plan: an application wherein you enter any data you happen to have and then just think hard about the kind of answer you want.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Funny that, I had a similar line of thought yesterday comparing various PDF reader. From Adobe Acrobat Reader, to MS Edge PDF viewer. (and also Foxit Reader)
Acrobat Reader, even though it has a performant PDF parsing (page is displaying quick, scrolling is smooth), is totally unusable on tablet (keep selecting text instead of scrolling) and is quite annoying in general (like on my PC) where it ignore my default choices of continuous scrolling, has a goddamn hug tool panel I have 0 care about displaying all the times, etc, etc, etc...
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My solution has been to avoid adobe products. It has worked well for me for over a decade. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Adobe. Successfully ignored by the experts since 1699!
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I was one of four people at Adobe who created, and implemented, the prototype that became Acrobat, and, was a credited author of Illustrator 3.2 and 5.0 ... BFD ...
Since those daze (circa 1998+), I've had a love-hate relationship with Adobe products: I abhor what Acrobat turned into (I use Nitro Pro), and, imho, Illustrator has not evolved much since Adobe acquired FreeHand (2005), and killed it.
With PhotoShop, it's more love-hate: imho, once you become relatively expert, you are "married" to it It's astounding range of features reflect, imho, the software accretion model where demands of all stakeholders are catered to at the expense of UI consistency and usability,
Nice to see PS finally got a Line tool ! [^]
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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I have been using Acrobat 9.0 Pro since it was just released. I have no desire to upgrade to a newer version because it works just fine, and I absolutely hate the new UI. Well what was new after they ditched what I have. I have not even taken a look of what things look like now. Designed by kiddies (for kiddies). I will never buy another Acrobat version. Several years ago looked for pricing and was told my version was not upgradable, and that I would be paying full price. Laughed at them.
Eventually all these companies are overtaken by hubris. Guess they are noticing that people are not auto upgrading every year or so. Adobess strategy is now to force you into monthly fees to always be up to date.
Learned my lessons with Autodesk (hubris central), luckily for me they showed their hand a few years before they went cloud only. My version was 2008, and I upgraded twice. But each time I noticed that they did not fix all the bugs, instead they went with a new version, which had a whole set of new bugs. But I was forking over $2,000 or for every upgrade. Didn't like that at all. Then the push came for a monthly pricing model, where they forced you to surrender your license. Yes, they used the word surrender! The arrogance was unbelievable. There was an enormous uproar among their customers.
Then the President of Autdesk was interviewed about this situation and he proudly proclaimed that Autodesk was no longer interested in customers who did not want to pay for their software through a monthly fee. Wall St. was excited. Many customer walked, including me. Their main competitor Solidworks still offers licenses, and they see it as a selling point. Now I am running my 2010 version in a Win 7 VM and raise my middle finger to Autodesk everytime I use it.
Intuit (Quickbooks) is another example of this hubris. They are also on a path to cloud only. It began with forced upgrade where they disable certain functionality if you version is too old to their liking. So you have to upgrade. There is also enormous resistance among their customers to go to the cloud. They have become so desperate to push this cloud conversion that they resort to insisting you answer their leading questions (how my company would really benefit from QB online) before they will talk to you about the issue you call them about. They literally hold you hostage before they proceed. So I have stopped responding to their questions, and after 10 minutes of silence I ask if they have made progress on my issue. Then they say "we cannot proceed with your issues until you answer our questions". If you call the next day because the issue is not resolved, then the process starts all over.
Photoshop => Paint.net
Premiere => Shotcut
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It's like a relationship. First its "what can I add" and later, its "what can I subtract?"
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not to mention: "what can i get away with," and, "what's this going to cost me"
"
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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Another quote from the article:Quote: The psychological phenomenon that blinds Trump supporters to his racism
Interesting article btw! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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following my previous message about anti virus (basically I have a new laptop and removed pre installed McAffee), I later realised that McAffee is, in fact, a virus itself! 
Case in point, I later installed a few PDF reader, including (I know, my mistake) Acrobat Reader!
Imagine my surprise when this also installed (without any warning, prompt, confirmation) McAffee again! Including a little service that on every startup prompted me to install McAffee and no obvious way to uninstall it!
Die McAffee, Die!!!!
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How To Uninstall McAfee Antivirus - John McAfee[^] NSFW.
Seriously, NSFW at all.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Best technique, definitely! ^_^
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That is brilliant & hilarious. I would love to be able to share with my work colleagues, but it's probably a straight dismissal.
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I don't remember my copy of McAfee coming with those babes. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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You need to upgrade to the pay-for version.
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