Just Produce
I’ve been seeing this advice over and over again: you want to come up with something good? Just produce.
Quantity Always Trumps Quality - [an experiment with two groups in a ceramics class] “It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the ‘quality’ group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
Wearing Out My Delete Key - “Trying to perfect an implementation in one’s mind is a form of speculation … [t]he elegant implementation you see when you read a great programmer’s code is often the third or fourth try. The great programmer is often more effective because they can implement several solutions in the same amount of time it takes the average programmer to implement one.”
Why I’m Not Working on My Startup (Yet) - comment - “It’s a numbers game. The more times you step up to the plate, the more home runs you will hit.”
A corollary of just producing is that you absolutely cannot be a perfectionist, nor can you be too proud. Inevitably some of what you produce will simply suck. But just produce, and your occasional hits will more than make up for your lemons.
One Response to “Just Produce”
1 Ady 6 August 2008 @ 2:59 am
I like the idea about quantity vs quality, it made me think, and I think the idea is correct. Pondering around about quality and produce no result makes no sense. IMHO it’s best to learn from mistakes.
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