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Luci for dyeing

getting some people who think this is a joke. No! I am entirely serious! let me explain.

“Oblique Strategies” is a card deck by Brian Eno designed for getting him and his friends unstuck creatively, when they reach a creative block.

Programmers get stuck too, and when we do, often it is because we have some unbreakable and unstated rule we’re holding in our heads uncriticially.

24 May 2023 at 23:48 | Open on merveilles.town
6 comments
Luci for dyeing

We exclude a heap of solutions as “invalid” without trying them because we believe the solutions are not good enough according to some arbitrary standard.

All the rules of programming are made up. mostly by white dudes looking to sell a seminar. If you can solve the problem and follow all of the rules you wanna follow? cool, good for you. this isn’t for you.

but if you’re getting stuck because you’re hung up on an algorithm being suboptimal, even though it’s barely used?

maybe let it go

24 May 2023 at 23:48 | Open on merveilles.town
Luci for dyeing

many of the original oblique strategies do apply to programming as well

github.com/joelparkerhenderson

25 May 2023 at 3:42 | Open on merveilles.town
Matt Stine

@zens I non-ironically suggested "maybe we should just keep the COBOL" this week

26 May 2023 at 2:15 | Open on mastodon.sdf.org
Mx Autumn :blobcatpumpkin:

@zens the number of times I’ve reviewed a pull request and approved with comments such as “this isn’t ideal but it’s got the job done and we need this out pronto” is pretty high.

Sometimes good enough code is what’s required even when we endeavour for perfect.

21 Sep 2023 at 6:26 | Open on notacult.social
Paul Souders

@zens THANK YOU for this thread

there is so much Cargo Cult nonsense around programming

24 May 2023 at 23:56 | Open on pdx.social
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