The Pastry Box Project is a collective blog where a rotating group of designers and developers each write short personal essays about web work and life.
HN commenters link individual essays, including a friend's post after a developer's death, and quote it on process versus skill and introversion.
>The time seems to be lost mostly to choosing between options (such as libraries to use), in deciding how to integrate those libraries into my source code
I think you're beating yourself up too much. A lot of good programmers feel the same way. [1][2][3] If you haven't done something before, it's going to take longer[4]. Also, spending more time initially isn't bad, if it will save you time in the future.
Part of the reason, you might feel that you're lagging, is that the landscape changes so fast. In another thread, someone pointed out the most productive programmers use a stable set of tools and know them inside out. [5] If you have to keep learning new libraries, this will slow down your productivity. Also, contra to what another poster said, taking notes is a good thing. I frequently come across situations where I feel I've done something, so I look back at my notes or git commits. If I have to make all the same mistakes again, it will take 3-4x as long.
1 - http://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
2 - https://the-pastry-box-project.net/ed-finkler/2014-july-6
3 - http://www.marco.org/2014/07/11/developers-dystopian-future
4 - http://prog21.dadgum.com/209.html
5 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10011689
Richer in features, poorer in vision. It was already apparent as the first browser wars were drawing to a close that Microsoft would not play ball on standards (the new 'fad') and interop and had no interest whatsoever in cross-platform web development. Even developing for IE5 across Windows and Mac was a hair-raising experience. Mozilla (the avenger) had to reverse engineer XMLHttpRequest to get it into Fire*/Phoenix.
But there's been a lot of rough-and-tumble and a lot of assaults on standards-as-process from all directions (Apple, Google, take a bow). That's why the WHAT-WG was formed, right? The browser makers who want to push the web forward as a platform. The big names like M..ozilla, Mi..Opera, Mmmi. Apple, Mgoo.. hey, has anyone seen Microsoft? Try their mobile, maybe they took a wrong turn.
BTW, the standards process is faltering again[1] (and I don't just mean the W3C's petrify-ray). If they're serious about the web, there's never been a better time for Microsoft to join the WHATWG.
[1] http://the-pastry-box-project.net/bruce-lawson/2012-august-4/
Tim Bray recently wrote [1] about feeling "stuck and discouraged" by complex tooling and frameworks. Excerpt:
"In fact, for every hour I’ve put into actually fiddling with Java code, I’ve invested another fighting git submodule subcommands, and now I’m staring at what feels like a thousand-meter-high Gradle rock-face."
"I should count myself fortunate that I’m not building a browser-based app; I’d have to budget an even higher proportion of the time staying on top of this week’s funkiest new JS libraries and scrambling to have Wave effects before everyone has them and they’re boring."
He also links to Ed Finkler’s "The Developer's Dystopian Future" [2] which was on HN a while ago and addresses the same topic.
[1] https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2014/07/17/Discouraged-Developer
[2] https://the-pastry-box-project.net/ed-finkler/2014-july-6
Chris Coyier (CSS-Tricks) provided personal insight into this similar position last week. As an introvert, I've heard it before, but it is always helpful to be reminded that I'm not that unusual at all:
http://the-pastry-box-project.net/chris-coyier/2013-april-3/
> The truth about the difference between introverts and extroverts lies in how personal energy is used and gained. Introverts need a lot of recharging time to gain energy. Being out-and-about, especially in social situations, is draining. Alone time is the only way to get that energy back. For me, it’s a lot of alone time. Not sitting in a dark cave staring at the wall, but somewhere comfortable where I can do other activities I enjoy. Laying on a hotel bed catching up on the internet totally counts. At home cooking dinner totally counts. Even reading a book at a coffee shop counts.
This also reminds me of Luke Arduini, who took his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge on January 1st 2014. Yahoo even hired a private investigator to find him. He also left (in hindsight unsettling) tweets shortly before his death.
In case someone is interested in the background story:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7048249
https://twitter.com/luk
https://the-pastry-box-project.net/charlie-robbins/2014-september-5
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2536683/Yahoo-hires-private-investigator-missing-programmer-Luke-Arduini.html
This quote is appropriate here:
Skilled people without a process will always find a way to get things done. Skill begets process. But process doesn’t beget skill. Following a recipe won’t make you a great chef – it just means you can make a competent bolognese. Great chefs don’t need cookery books. They know their medium and their ingredients so well that they can find excellent combinations as they go. The recipe becomes a natural by-product of their work.
From http://the-pastry-box-project.net/cennydd-bowles/2012-march-28/