34: I agree that writing on a computer is strictly better, what's good about paper is the ability to switch as you want between writing mode and drawing mode. Considering most people don't have a drawing tablet and are not good at drawing with a mouse, they write better diagrams on paper. As you said in 10 and 11, it's worth it to take the time to find a diagram tool that you can use for most of your diagrams and integrate with your writing on the computer.
46, 57, 60: Thank you for these! I agree and I'm glad that I'm not alone in thinking those.
62: More than that, the focus on the programming languages as if they were independent of their ecosystem has done a lot of damage. I live in Go land mostly, and it's always surprising to see how much people who focus on the language itself miss. The build system is great. Most people see a project being made in Go as a positive because it'll be easy to install for them, and reasonably fast. You can `go run toto.go` a file even if that file has imports, it'll work. `go build` will just work too. A project can be a single Go file, and when you want to share/distribute it you'll have to add two files at most (go.mod, go.sum). Imports make sense and are easy to figure out. It builds fast. Distributing to multiple platforms is easy too.
Rob Pike says that Go is a language focused on software engineering. Maybe it's time to separate programming and software engineering, and discuss software engineering languages and programming languages very differently.
> 28: Also: pull quotes on page 5 of a website don’t make sense. Whose eyes are you trying to catch? The eyes of the person walking past the magazine stand on which your article is presented on a iPad and scrolled-down 5 pages? Come on.
So nice to discover I hated something I didn't know the name before.
> 32: Engineers put too many graphs on their dashboards. Most of them are useless. 5 graphs is enough for everything. A dashboard should tell you something at a glance, not require a manual.
It's often a signal of vendor seduction :)
> 39: There are a lot of very talented, very knowledgeable, very intelligent people that just don’t know how to work. Sadly, they often think they’re misunderstood.
This hits deep. Not that I see myself of super talented or smart, but I know I'm knowledgeable. And I feel misguided and misunderstood, yes.
> So nice to discover I hated something I didn't know the name before.
You're welcome!
> This hits deep. Not that I see myself of super talented or smart, but I know I'm knowledgeable. And I feel misguided and misunderstood, yes.
To be fair, I do think there's valid reasons to feel misguided and misunderstood. But in my experience, I've seen smart/talented/knowledgeable people rest on their skills/knowledge and not put the actual work in and then, when the results aren't what they think they should be, think something went wrong, someone doesn't understand them and how smart/skilled they are.
Yeah consistency is a struggle to me, hence why I put so much emphasis on taking care of my body and mind this year. And I see things slowly progressing to the better!
Example: I have a hard time driving to places that I previously only navigated to with the help of Google Maps. Whereas if I drive to a place without the guiding of Google Maps I remember the directions a lot better. My point here is that it doesn't matter — why should I spent mental energy remembering directions that I don't have to remember?
Opinions: everybody has them, everybody is proud of them ("I have strong opinions on X", "I'm an opinionated Y"), but I think they are very often based on the last thing the opinion-haver has read or heard and don't stand a lot of scrutiny. Doesn't mean all opinions are bad, but I don't think they're worth that much.
Taste: taste is, in my experience, a much more feeble thing, one that has been built up over a long time, seeing different approaches work or not work; impressions turned into experience turned into instinct. And I think there are individuals who have great taste in software/design/management/writing/... and can make great judgement calls, but their judgements based on taste aren't valued enough. Mostly because they can't back it up with data, or facts, and that's often only because they can't remember where those intuitions come from. Just like you can't "remember" which cell in your body is the result of which food you ate when.
This was excellent
Thank you! Glad you liked it.
34: I agree that writing on a computer is strictly better, what's good about paper is the ability to switch as you want between writing mode and drawing mode. Considering most people don't have a drawing tablet and are not good at drawing with a mouse, they write better diagrams on paper. As you said in 10 and 11, it's worth it to take the time to find a diagram tool that you can use for most of your diagrams and integrate with your writing on the computer.
46, 57, 60: Thank you for these! I agree and I'm glad that I'm not alone in thinking those.
62: More than that, the focus on the programming languages as if they were independent of their ecosystem has done a lot of damage. I live in Go land mostly, and it's always surprising to see how much people who focus on the language itself miss. The build system is great. Most people see a project being made in Go as a positive because it'll be easy to install for them, and reasonably fast. You can `go run toto.go` a file even if that file has imports, it'll work. `go build` will just work too. A project can be a single Go file, and when you want to share/distribute it you'll have to add two files at most (go.mod, go.sum). Imports make sense and are easy to figure out. It builds fast. Distributing to multiple platforms is easy too.
Rob Pike says that Go is a language focused on software engineering. Maybe it's time to separate programming and software engineering, and discuss software engineering languages and programming languages very differently.
🕶✅
4
The worst part is when you, for once, not have your phone next to you... Or even worse when you have to then search it...
9
Yeeeees. It's really selfish to not do so actually and that's the part that makes it so infuriating..
25
Oh no... that's so true
50
Now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense..
60 and 63
xD totally agree
> 28: Also: pull quotes on page 5 of a website don’t make sense. Whose eyes are you trying to catch? The eyes of the person walking past the magazine stand on which your article is presented on a iPad and scrolled-down 5 pages? Come on.
So nice to discover I hated something I didn't know the name before.
> 32: Engineers put too many graphs on their dashboards. Most of them are useless. 5 graphs is enough for everything. A dashboard should tell you something at a glance, not require a manual.
It's often a signal of vendor seduction :)
> 39: There are a lot of very talented, very knowledgeable, very intelligent people that just don’t know how to work. Sadly, they often think they’re misunderstood.
This hits deep. Not that I see myself of super talented or smart, but I know I'm knowledgeable. And I feel misguided and misunderstood, yes.
> So nice to discover I hated something I didn't know the name before.
You're welcome!
> This hits deep. Not that I see myself of super talented or smart, but I know I'm knowledgeable. And I feel misguided and misunderstood, yes.
To be fair, I do think there's valid reasons to feel misguided and misunderstood. But in my experience, I've seen smart/talented/knowledgeable people rest on their skills/knowledge and not put the actual work in and then, when the results aren't what they think they should be, think something went wrong, someone doesn't understand them and how smart/skilled they are.
Yeah consistency is a struggle to me, hence why I put so much emphasis on taking care of my body and mind this year. And I see things slowly progressing to the better!
34. White boards - for quick points and tasks
Computer - long form writing
Okay, hm, uh, well... Obviously I disagree, BUT white boards can be nice, yes.
I have one on the right side of my work table, and I love it. Easily draw your thoughts and ideas on the board while sitting at your table.
Example: I have a hard time driving to places that I previously only navigated to with the help of Google Maps. Whereas if I drive to a place without the guiding of Google Maps I remember the directions a lot better. My point here is that it doesn't matter — why should I spent mental energy remembering directions that I don't have to remember?
Opinions: everybody has them, everybody is proud of them ("I have strong opinions on X", "I'm an opinionated Y"), but I think they are very often based on the last thing the opinion-haver has read or heard and don't stand a lot of scrutiny. Doesn't mean all opinions are bad, but I don't think they're worth that much.
Taste: taste is, in my experience, a much more feeble thing, one that has been built up over a long time, seeing different approaches work or not work; impressions turned into experience turned into instinct. And I think there are individuals who have great taste in software/design/management/writing/... and can make great judgement calls, but their judgements based on taste aren't valued enough. Mostly because they can't back it up with data, or facts, and that's often only because they can't remember where those intuitions come from. Just like you can't "remember" which cell in your body is the result of which food you ate when.