The caveat is that you might end up shaving a yak.

More often than not I end up three or four tasks deep while trying to fix a tiny issue.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_UZFI-8D5uA

bonoboTP 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There is simply no general recipe for this. Sometimes I put my little tools and libraries in order and then I'm very productive with them and looking back it seems to have been the key enabler to the actual thing getting done. Other times I go dirty mode and just hardcode constants, copy code files under time pressure and looking back it is clear that getting to the same result with the clean approach would have taken months and the benefit for later tasks would be unclear.

I know some are tired of AI discourse, but I found AI can help to sharpen the tools but at the same time I find that my scope grows such that dealing with the tools takes just as much time but the tools have more features "just in case" and support platforms or use cases that I won't often need, but it feels easy enough to just do, but then as I said it still takes long in total.

It's all mostly an emotional procrastination issue underneath it. Though that can go both ways. Sometimes you procrastinate on thinking about the overall architecture in favor of just making messy edits because thinking about the overall problem is more taxing than just doing a small iteration, sometimes you procrastinate on getting the thing done in favor of working on more tightly scoped neat little tools that are easier to keep in mind than the vague and sprawling overall goals.

	▲	nine_k 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		What looks like "wasting time on procrastination" may be actually "spending time on thinking". Thinking takes time. Making messy edits is a bet on previous code quality. If you have paid off enough technical debt, you can take another "technical loan" and expect the rest of the owl to still function despite the mess being introduced. If things are already messy, there's always a risk to make the fess incomprehensible and failing in mysterious seemingly unrelated ways, with the only way to fix it being to git reset --hard to the prior point, and do a more right thing. But the time would have been wasted already. My approach is usually to timebox it, and cut the losses if an acceptable solution is not yet in sight when the time runs out.
	▲	sandyagent 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[dead]

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9dev 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I knew which vid's it gonna be before even clicking. Still hilarious.

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Sophira 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/349

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wredcoll 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This comic definitely speaks to me on a deep emotional level, but at the same time one of the things I like so much about computers is they're essentially unbreakable.

Not that you can't get one into a non-working state, that is, of course, trivial but with the lone exception of deleting data, you can always restore a computer, the only tool being needed is some kind of boot disk.

(Compare that to breaking a literal hammer, you'd need a pretty specialized set of tools handy if you wanted to actually restore it)

	▲	buildbot 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Ah; if only this was really true. You can certainly get a computer into a permanently bricked state, especially an embedded device. Even a modern x86 machine can be basically toasted by a bad firmware update.
	▲	6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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sltkr 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And perhaps less well known to the Hacker News crowd, relevant Malcom in the Middle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W4NFcamRhM

	▲	teddyh 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That’s the same video (but in a higher quality) as in the grandparent comment.

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malux85 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This only happens when the tools have become so neglected that every single one is broken. You should still take the time to pay down that debt, and in the process learn the lesson to pay the debt in smaller chunks in the future.

You are going to pay it anyway, its not an "if" its a "when"

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Graziano_M 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Weird. I happen to be watching Malcolm in the Middle and I find a link to Malcolm in the Middle

	▲	foresto 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4HQyqc-aVU

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kurthr 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

LOL! Well, somebody's gotta shave it!