TITLE: Humble on My Mind
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: January 12, 2005 11:02 AM
DESC: A theme of humility has been running through my thoughts lately.
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BODY:
I've been busy with the first week of classes and some duties
with conferences.  But I wanted to share a couple of ideas
that have been rolling around my mind lately.

<I>From Ward Cunningham</I>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<I>There are a lot of ideas, but really good ideas are hard
to snatch because they look so humble when you first see them.
You expect the solution to be beautifully complex and a good
solution is pretty plain until you see how that plainness
plays in a complicated way to make something better than you
could get in your head all at once.</I>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

"Humble ideas".  Beauty often lies in how simple things interact
with one another.

(I heard this in
<A HREF="http://www.theserverside.net/talks/videos/WardCunningham/interview.tss?bandwidth=dsl">
   an interview</A>
Ward gave to TheServerSide.NET.  You should watch it for
yourself.  Lots of great stuff there.)

<I>From Kent Beck</I>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<I>Learning to listen empathically is the simplest thing
I have control over that might change how others respond
to me.</I>
</BLOCKQUOTE>

This statement hits me square in a personal weakness.
I can be a good listener, but I'm not <EM>reliably</EM>
a good listener.  And inconsistency has an especially
deleterious effect on how people come to feel about a
person.

(I saw this quote on the
<A HREF="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/">
   XP discussion list</A>.)
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