TITLE: Different Kinds of Lazy and Dumb
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 09, 2006  5:07 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Sometime in the last month, I came across a link to an
article that is a couple of years old,
<A HREF="http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-08-24-n14.html">
   Why Good Programmers Are Lazy and Dumb</A>.
I like to read that kind of article every once in a while,
even if I've seen the general ideas before.  Usually, such
an article hits me in a particular way according to my
current frame of mind.  Here are the ideas that stood out
for me this weekend:

<UL>
<LI> Balance.  Without it, we usually go astray.

<LI> Lazy?  "... because only lazy programmers will want to
     write the kind of tools that might replace them in the
     end."

     But you can't be so lazy that you are unwilling to
     write those tools, or to refactor your code, to save
     time in the future.  You have to be <EM>forward-thinking</EM>
     lazy.
     <A HREF="http://xp.c2.com/YouArentGonnaNeedIt.html">
        You Aren't Gonna Need It</A>
     is an admonition against doing work too soon.  But sometimes,
     you do need it.

<LI> Dumb?  "The less you know, the more radical will your
     approaches become...."  You know,
     <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginner's_mind">
        beginner's mind</A>
     and all that.

     But you can't be so dumb that you don't have the raw
     material out of which to propose a radical solution.
     You can only think outside the box when
     <A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-05.html#e2005-05-16T15_41_16.htm">
        you start with a box</A>.
</UL>

Just as it's true that if you can't handle the
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-04.html#e2006-04-06T18_46_45.htm">
   right kind of pain</A>
you'll have a hard time getting better at much of anything,
it's true that if you can't find the balance between the
rights kind of lazy and dumb, you'll have a hard time
taking your skills to the next level.
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