

Does programming lead to paralyzing perfectionism in other aspects of life? - amichail

For example, you might find it difficult to write/speak since you want to be as truthful as possible.<p>But communication that is flawless in a truth telling sense is hard.  For example, get one verb tense slightly wrong and your sentence could be slightly misleading.<p>Moreover, people sometimes sacrifice flawless truth for simplicity.
======
intellectronica
If you're prone to becoming paralysed with perfectionism, you're likely to
suffer in your programming at least as much as in other aspects of life.

~~~
dkarl
Except that in your first couple of years of programming, before you start
worrying about maintenance, users, and other developers, "working" is about as
"perfect" as you care to get.

------
lux
I'm not sure about a need for "flawless truth" but after being immersed in
code for hours I do have trouble socializing and being on a less intense level
with people. I find I'm inclined to be more introverted unless I've had time
to unwind, or to want to discuss topics with more detail, stuff that's better
discussed one-on-one than in groups.

But the same can be true if I'm deep into writing a new song as well, so maybe
it's a problem moving from the specific to the general without time to switch
modes?

~~~
jonny_noog
_... after being immersed in code for hours I do have trouble socializing and
being on a less intense level with people._

I have noticed this too. Though I've never really been that sociable a person
to begin with, maybe that makes a difference. But for whatever reason, my
"coding mode" does not seem to play well with my "social mode".

~~~
asdlfj2sd33
Yep, same here. It's like it takes time for my brain to switch gears.

------
tokenadult
It's possible that some forms of programming education--I don't say all forms
--lead people to simply disregard issues of quality applicable to other
domains. "If it compiles, it's okay" is not a sufficient basis for saying that
an argument about public policy, for example, is valid. I think I see quite a
few examples of invalid reasoning about value-laden factual matters with
policy implications in online discussion, perhaps precisely because people
with programming educations were early adopters of online technology, and
sometimes set the tone for how online discussion is conducted.

Perhaps there are examples both of your concern and of mine here on HN.

------
JoshCole
This gets even more complicated when I realize that the meaning of a word
rests within people which means even something perfectly accurate to me could
be inaccurate to someone else.

------
apotheon
I try to equivocate intelligently, in an attempt to be more precise and
accurate in what I say. I end up equivocating a lot. It works well for me,
though of course I only get to experience it (and judge it) from the "inside".

------
rw
I've noticed that when I ascend (descend?) into the land of proofs, I get
annoyed with fuzzy imprecise human matters.

------
geezer
As Gladwell said, there are advantages of disadvantages, and disadvantages of
advantages.

For most of us, it is hard to accept that our skills, such as programming,
that allow us to do the things we love can ever be of any disadvantage.

------
CyberFonic
Only if you've never had to debug a program!

Life is more like recursive debugging. You poke around until you find a bug,
fix it, introduce a couple of more, rinse and repeat ! When you think you're
done, the requirements change.

------
scott_s
What is your obsession with programming and the notion that it encourages
"paralyzing perfectionism"? See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=567827>.

~~~
tigerthink
Probably it's something he's noticed in himself that he'd like to fix.

------
KevBurnsJr
I think as programmers our interpreter must be hard-wired between our brain
and our mouths. We more easily recognize when our speech is ambiguous and
spend less time communicating unnecessarily.

