Free Lunch
[Bear with me, this really isn’t technical]
This week we needed to write some code that calculated an APR. We weren’t absolutely sure of the calculation so we looked at someone else’s code to see how they did it. What we found was laughable – about 30 lines of repetitive junk for something that should be easily expressed in a formula. It took a bit of effort to locate the formula but once we succeeded the 30 lines of inflexible junk was replaced with a single line of beautiful, efficient and flexible code.
So today I was going about my job and realized that there were things I did, not quite at the same level, but that were repetitive and menial in nature because I didn’t put some extra effort into “canning” whatever the task was into a simple process.
Think of hooking up a stereo: some people are only interested in plugging in the wires and getting sound so they end up with this tangled mess of unlabelled wires that you are liable to trip on if you find yourself in the right place. Other people bother with drilling holes into their walls, running wires under the carpet or spending extra money on wireless gadgets because it is better in the long run.
I knew just who to ask for an opinion:
David Seruyange says:
Herr Haist
David Seruyange says:
question for you
David Seruyange says:
what do you think is the balance between doing things yoursel
David Seruyange says:
yourself quickly and
David Seruyange says:
spending time to learn how something works?
markus says:
it depends on a lot of factors ---
markus says:
1. how curious/capable/diligent you are
2. how important it is to know something
3. is there a deadline?
4. how much control you need to have over the outcome
markus says:
also: I tend to not believe in any concepts such as: 'quickly' + 'easily' -- they have big "price tags", and are marketing tools to cater towards ignorance and complacency and ultimately control and oppression
markus says:
but, you can do things "the smart way" sometimes
markus says:
vs. "the hard way"
markus says:
but, I think everything valuable comes with a fight
David Seruyange says:
hm
David Seruyange says:
'quickly' and 'easily' don't exist in your world?
markus says:
not in things that matter most ---- it's a bigger conversation
Markus’ opinion, in a single sentence (his own) is:
Everything valuable comes with a fight (few exceptions).
That’s a wee bit to chew on, is it not? So my mind races to think of things that are truly valuable that are free. When taking the shorter easier path yields more value than fighting one’s way through something.
Is love begotten without struggle? While I can’t vouch for or against there I can say that I don’t know of any religion whose path to actualization is a stroll in the park. Whether you are on top of a mountain chanting ‘om’ freezing your ass off as the sun rises or working in a ‘Christian’ environment and trying to separate what you believe from the pettiness of people it is not easy.
So pedal back to the light issues – today we were doing some other work related stuff and got into a massive argument over whether something should be in the center of a page (my coworker S) or it should be left justified (me). The easy thing to do would have been cave and just put it wherever but we both cared enough to shout a little bit and call Markus. He laughed and told us we were both wrong, but gave us some insight on how to improve things. But I have to say that this was valuable, even though we pressed on something that could have been ignored.
Earlier tonight I went out to eat with a South Dakotan friend. I asked her what she thought and she said she couldn’t understand why we cared. In the middle of a bite into her oily cheeseburger she told me that she can be anal retentive about some things like separating laundry but that people end up making their lives over complicated by trying to make things too hard.
Obviously there is a continuum here:
| Quick+Dirty |
<-----------------------------------------------> |
Anal Accompli |
So here are my questions: where are you on the continuum and is anything valuable easily begotten?
8:37:58 PM 
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