TITLE: Enjoyment Bias in Programming
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 25, 2019  3:55 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 Earlier this week, I read this snippet about the benefits of
 "enjoyment bias" in Morgan Housel's
<A HREF="https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/useful-biases/">
   latest blog post</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 2. Enjoyment bias: An inefficient investing strategy that
 you enjoy will outperform an efficient one that feels like
 work because anything that feels like work will eventually
 be abandoned.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Getting anything to work requires giving it an appropriate
 amount of time. Giving it time requires not getting bored
 or burning out.  Not getting bored or burning out requires
 that you love what you're doing, because that's when the
 hard parts become acceptable.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 The programmer in me immediately thought, "I have this pattern."
 My guess is that this bias applies to a lot of things outside of
 investing.  In software development, the choices of development
 methodology and programming language often benefit from enjoyment
 bias.

 In programming as in investing, we can take this too far and hurt
 ourselves, our teams, and our users.  Anything can be overdone.
 But, in general, we are more likely to stick with the hard work of
 building software when we enjoy the way we are building it and the
 tools we are using.  Don't let others shame you away from what
 works for you.

 This bias actually reminded me of a short bit from
<A HREF="http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html">
   one of Paul Graham's essays</A>
 on, of all things, procrastination:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I think the way to "solve" the problem of procrastination
 is to let delight pull you instead of making a to-do list
 push you.  Work on an ambitious project you really enjoy,
 and sail as close to the wind as you can, and you'll leave
 the right things undone.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 Delight can keep you happily working when the going gets rough,
 and it can pull you toward work when a lack of delight would
 leave you killing time on stuff that doesn't matter.

 (By the way, I think that several other biases described by
 Housel are also useful in programming.  Consider the value of
 reasonable ignorance, number three on his list....)
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