Recently I made a big move (from a New England state down to the center of the Sun, Florida). Before I left I had to take care of some things in the house as per the buyers request. Much of this was painting, sanding, and repainting sort of stuff. Luckily, I had a friend help me, who is also a programmer. He and I have two differing styles of programming. I tend to get a framework done, debug, cleanup, then optimize. He tends to pre-optimize, and doesn't burn through the main functionality of code as I do.

Anyways, when we were sanding some door trim I would get the majority of the trim sanded, and come back and find the 'bugs', or places that were missed. I even thought to myself when I had begun, "Should I make every square inch perfect now? Nah, I'll debug it later". And, that is what I did. I got the framework of a finished sanding job done, then came back and debugged the errors, so to speak. Then, I would wipe the area down, and stain the wood (cleanup, then optimization). I considered each doorway as a project, as opposed to all the doorways as a project.

My buddy, on the other hand, would make sure the square inch was sanded before moving on to another square inch. I noticed his programming style in the way he was working on a real life project, just as I noticed mine. He actually even swept up the sawdust from the floor as he went along (we would take a break, he would come back and sweep before sanding again).

Then, when I arrived down here, in the sweltering heat, I thought to myself, "Should I bring in all my stuff from the car now?" (I drove down here, with my dog) And thought to myself, "Nah, I'll bring in my clothes now, and come back for things when I need them". I again thought of this as a sort of "Get done now what is most important (functionality, and being able to be clothed) now, and unpack the car as needed (debugging and optimizing my living needs). I have also seen some other relationships between my actions and programming style, but won't bore you with them. Is this all a coincedence? Or are who we are in one aspect of our lives carry over? I was never taught "how" to write a program, so maybe with no influences I learned to do it as I do other things.

So, does anyone else ever notice this type of corrolation with themselves or people they know?

PS: Even though it seems I took more steps to finish the sanding/staining.. I still finished sooner. In case anyone was going to ask :)

Cheers,
KM

In reply to Life and programming practices by KM

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