On Sat, 31 Jul 2004, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
>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
...
>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.
I routinely delay things because I am an inveterate procrastinator. I
rationalise it by saying that I am not much of a programmer, and being
optimistic about the fact that if I wait for a real programmer to spend a
little bit of time implementing my algorithm it would be quicker than me
doing it straight away.
Gerald, I shudder to think what you will be like when you get to some ripe
old age like 45... :-)
Cheers
Chaals