January 16th, 2016
In Technology
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If you enjoy this article, see the other most popular articles
If you enjoy this article, see the other most popular articles
Paralyzed by too much thinking
(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.
When I started programming again, I vowed not to type a single character unless I knew what pattern I was applying as I did so. The result was incredibly frustrating. I want a class called “Stack”, but why “Stack” and not something else. Then I would go and write the patterns for naming classes and then I could type “Stack”. Then I would want to make its first method public, but why public?
At first, it was like a centipede thinking about its feet. Programming, which had been effortless and flowing, was now an awful chore. I knew, I just knew, that I was going to encounter more patterns I hadn’t thought about. Decisions I had been making on auto-pilot I would have to stop and consider. Ten seconds of coding, four hours of pattern writing.
By the end of the first week, though, I discovered I wasn’t finding many unexamined decisions any more. Most of the decisions I made most of the time were covered by a small catalog of patterns, tens but not hundreds. The surprising effect was that as long as I didn’t uncover any new patterns, programming already flowed better for me. When I programmed, I programmed, undistracted by that second level of anxiety about whether I was using the right strategy.
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https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/patterns-enhance-craft-the-final-step-pareto-effort/914582455241286#
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