Hammock Driven Development - Rich Hickey

That and Hammock Driven Development: ▶ this video Both of these talks are in my top 5. Edit (okay, here are the other 3): * All the Little Things by Sandi Metz link * Programming is terrible—Lessons learned from a life wasted. link * Some talk I saw by Dan McKinley on making Data-Driven decisions. I can't find the original video, but here's a really similar one: link

Rich Hickey, of Clojure fame, has a talk you might find interesting. It goes by multiple titles: * Step Away from the Computer * Hammock-Driven Development ▶ this video The idea / hypothesis is that sometimes we need to sit down and think about something for an hour, a day... This seemingly "wasted time" can pay huge dividends in long-term health of a project. Like compound interest. As others have noted, this may seen "lazy" to managers, especially if LOC or sprint velocity is the metric they use.

In terms of mind-expanding or intellectually stimulating, I find it's easier to get that from Youtube. I recommend: 3blue1brown for math ( link ) Everyday Astronaut if you are casually interested in rockets ( link ) Bret Victor ( link ) or Rich Hickey ( ▶ this video ) for programming and design. Doing a full college course is such a time investment and it usually takes a few weeks to start proving the interesting stuff. I find it more fun to look to shorter content for inspiration. I might realize I don't understand the fundamentals of the topic and then seek out a way to study it.

I think a good starting point is to integrate the principles described in the Simple Made Easy[1] & Hammock Driven Development[2]. These are overarching first principles that help in designing and writing code, but also in communication & team work. [1]: link [2]: ▶ this video

The feeling you're describing is called anxiety. Some anxiety is normal, but constant anxiety that interferes with your life is a problem. I think it'd be worth trying that label on: call it anxiety, and ask "how do I reduce my anxiety?". About 1 in 4 people experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, so there's a lot of research and good approaches out there. One thing that stands out to me is that you've made some pretty big and scary claims without a lot of evidence to back them up. Are you actually not a good developer? Are smart people really "capturing" the opportunity (ie there is less opportunity over time)? Do people who aren't working all the time fall behind and never make anything of significance? If so, prove it! Figure out what evidence you would need to definitively answer these questions, and research or experiment until you have that evidence. Anxious thoughts are like dreams: they seem perfectly reasonable in your head, but when you try to bring them into the real world they fall apart. As far as evidence goes, I'd point you in the direction of two of my favourite Richards. The one who did Clojure: ▶ this video and the one who got a Nobel for Quantum Electrodynamics: link

This makes me think of Rich Hickey's Hammock Driven Development: ▶ this video - "Stay away from the computer" - Start by asking: "what is the problem?"

I like this kind of development also. But I don't think it is for everyone (the person has to keep thinking on the problem for long time). A good talk about It, from the creator of clojure: ▶ this video

I have loved this talk for some time and have forced everyone at my company to watch the video. I found a lot of parallels with this "Hammock Driven Development" talk by Rich Hickey: ▶ this video They both seem to suggest that you have to put in the effort, do the hard work and dig into the problem deeply. But then when you hit a wall, you should take a break. Relax. Play. Sleep. It is often during this "open" minded stage when the solution comes.

I was searching for exactly the same stuff yesterday, and I found this: link I usually keep notebooks, but I am ever more convinced of using one because of Rich hickey's talk: ▶ this video and we have a better chance of remembering something if we write than type. link . I have previously read that people like Martin Gardner had an awesome system of keeping notes. I would love to know more about your tips. How do keep your notes? How do you organize stuff, while retaining the freedom to doodle. How do you find stuff again(which is the killer feature for typed notes). Would love to learn from the masters - do you have any books to recommend?

This is very similar to what Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) talks about when he talks about Hammock Driven Development, I recommend watching him talking about it here: ▶ this video

"don't get stuck" reminds me of the feynman method of problem solving: 1. Write down the problem. 2. Think very hard. 3. Write down the answer. Rich Hickey's Hammock Driven Development, ▶ this video , is IMO very good for actually not getting stuck in a bad place problem solving.

This is a classic and hilarious series of posts on the foolhardiness of the TDD approach to software design: link Personally I prefer Rich Hickey's "Hammock Driven Development": ▶ this video