
"Don't quit, even when you know your stuff sucks" - Ira Glass on Storytelling - iamwil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE&feature=related
======
iamwil
I normally wouldn't post stuff on here from youtube, but I was watching stuff
on "This American Life", and I ran across this clip. TAL is a weekly radio
show. Regardless of what you might think about the show, here, the host of the
show talks about getting better at what you do, and how many people quit when
they can tell their stuff sucks. I thought it applicable to builders that
frequent this forum as well, as well as being in line with PG's essay about a
taste for makers.

~~~
blogimus
I've not watched to video, but I think of a woodworking page I read a long
time ago following the paths of a power tool guy and a hand tool guy learning
their craft. Through enough practice, they eventually converge on a generally
common set of tools, mix of hand and power. Through the progression of skill
development were milestones of

make stuff that sucks that no one wants, throw it out.

make stuff that sucks that you can use, keep it for a while.

make stuff that sucks less, keep it for longer.

make stuff and hey, someone actually wants you to make stuff for them

make stuff better

and so on...

To me, its about making mistakes and learning from them, trying not to repeat
the same mistake twice. Then you are bound to get better. There was some quote
I heard that if you make enough mistakes and don't repeat them, you will run
out of mistakes. It was a bit satirical, but I like the general line of
thinking.

~~~
wallflower
I took a furniture making class and Dan, the experienced woodworker, who
taught the class told me something important when I was struggling with my
table. He said "Do you think master woodworkers don't make mistakes? They do,
they shim* stuff up. You can't tell when it's done". Another woodworker also
told me 'there's no such thing as the right way. there's only smarter, safer,
faster" e.g. if you run into a problem, you work around it with a creative
solution.

A shim is a small piece of wood, chipped to fit into a joint and glued in
place so that the joint is snug.

~~~
blogimus
yep, and mistakes that do not negatively impact functionality or form are
collectively called "character."

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andreyf
A more common problem is lack of said taste - when people don't know their
stuff sucks.

~~~
neilk
A sign of this is not loving other people's work. People who love to write,
but not to read, produce dreck.

There are lots of people who love to program. But how many people love to read
really good source code, or learn from books that teach difficult concepts in
programming?

~~~
thisisnotmyname
I've been thinking a lot about this lately myself. Where does one go to read
"really good" source code?

~~~
kalid
Great question, I'd like to know too. Sometimes I poke around popular open
source projects, like the rails source. Here's how they implemented the
syntatic sugar for things like "1.month.from_now":

[http://github.com/rails/rails/tree/master/activesupport/lib/...](http://github.com/rails/rails/tree/master/activesupport/lib/active_support/core_ext/numeric/time.rb)

I recently found <http://refactormycode.com/> and it looks interesting for
learning, though not comprehensive. Sometimes it's nice to see the "before and
after".

------
yangyang42
His story totally reminds me of Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't Break the chain" tip.

see: <http://www.dontbreakthechain.com>
[http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-
pr...](http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret-281626.php)

------
sealedidentity
His series on the Chicago radio is great. It's called "This American Life". I
caught an episode of it on Showtime, the TV series is equally brilliant. It's
good to see good TV like this at the time when cable's dominated by nonsense
like The Hills and all the dumb reality shows.

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edw519
I normally don't watch online videos, but when I saw this one was exactly
"5:19" long, I knew he was talking to me :-)

01:35 "the most important possible thing you can do is...do a lot of work"

Reminds me of the time I asked Tony Robbins what made him such a great public
speaker and he said, "10,000 speeches".

David Heinemeier Hansson gave me a similar response after his memorable
Startup School talk.

I've written 10,000 programs and I'm still not close to being satisfied. I'll
just keep plugging away.

~~~
mxh
10,000?

10,000 is a large number. For instance, 10,000 days is about 27 years, 5
months.

~~~
edw519
When you look at it that way, it seems impossible, no?

I have 2,100 original programs in one client's library right now. I have
worked for them part time for 5 years. That works out to more than one program
per day. I suppose that's right. There have been many days where I've written
5 to 10 new programs.

In all fairness, I count everything. Largest program --> maybe 3,000 LOC
(shame on me). Smallest --> 5 LOC? Lots of utilities, functions, subroutines,
and one time runs, too, I imagine.

In an interview once, I was asked how many programs I had written. I was never
asked that question before (or since). I did a little math and answered 8,000.
The interviewer didn't believe me. I showed him the math. I eventually got the
job and it worked out well for both of us. I reminded my boss many times about
that question (I'm up to 8,049.)

I first got paid for a writing a program in 1979.

I once went to a company that had in its library a program I had written for a
software vendor 5 years earlier. I was so embarassed by it, I actually changed
the author's name :-).

Tony Robbins giving 10,000 speeches. Many days he gives 5 to 10. I believe it.

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doubleplus
Neat. I've had those clips bookmarked for a long time now... I rewatch every
month or two. <3 Ira Glass... religious TAL listener.

I also watch this interview with Nick Cave on the creative process every once
in a while: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgHatnzQ9ZM> Semi-related, theme-
wise.

