This essay by Paul Graham on designing programming languages

   http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html

includes this section on balancing optimism with skepticism
when programming:

> 10 Redesign
:
> To write good software you must simultaneously keep two opposing
> ideas in your head. You need the young hacker's naive faith in
> his abilities, and at the same time the veteran's skepticism. You
> have to be able to think how hard can it be? with one half of
> your brain while thinking it will never work with the other.
>
> The trick is to realize that there's no real contradiction here.
> You want to be optimistic and skeptical about two different
> things. You have to be optimistic about the possibility of
> solving the problem, but skeptical about the value of whatever
> solution you've got so far.
>
> People who do good work often think that whatever they're working
> on is no good. Others see what they've done and are full of
> wonder, but the creator is full of worry. This pattern is no
> coincidence: it is the worry that made the work good.
>
> If you can keep hope and worry balanced, they will drive a
> project forward the same way your two legs drive a bicycle
> forward. In the first phase of the two-cycle innovation engine,
> you work furiously on some problem, inspired by your confidence
> that you'll be able to solve it. In the second phase, you look at
> what you've done in the cold light of morning, and see all its
> flaws very clearly. But as long as your critical spirit doesn't
> outweigh your hope, you'll be able to look at your admittedly
> incomplete system, and think, how hard can it be to get the rest
> of the way?, thereby continuing the cycle.
>
> It's tricky to keep the two forces balanced. In young hackers,
> optimism predominates. They produce something, are convinced it's
> great, and never improve it. In old hackers, skepticism
> predominates, and they won't even dare to take on ambitious
> projects.

I routinely delay programming projects because they seem like
they'll be a lot of work, then finally hack them up and think
"wow, that was easier than I thought." (Skepticism must be
getting the better of me in my old age.)

So I'm glad to have had this pointed out to me -- optimism and
skepticism are both healthy and useful.

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/