From 74d64f2368f5d9699148d78f19b0a3cc0b2a8739 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Kathryn Huxham Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:16:13 +0800 Subject: [PATCH] Add The Dark Path, Or, what if i don't Want to Quit my Job? --- ...%2C-Or%2C-what-if-i-don%27t-Want-to-Quit-my-Job%3F.md | 9 +++++++++ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+) create mode 100644 The-Dark-Path%2C-Or%2C-what-if-i-don%27t-Want-to-Quit-my-Job%3F.md diff --git a/The-Dark-Path%2C-Or%2C-what-if-i-don%27t-Want-to-Quit-my-Job%3F.md b/The-Dark-Path%2C-Or%2C-what-if-i-don%27t-Want-to-Quit-my-Job%3F.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6dc0eee --- /dev/null +++ b/The-Dark-Path%2C-Or%2C-what-if-i-don%27t-Want-to-Quit-my-Job%3F.md @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +
And I’m talking big-brain men and women like Lamport, Knuth, Stroustrop, Edwin Brady, Kernighan and others. Scientists and engineers who I can be pretty confident are better-educated, [hksolution.co.kr](http://hksolution.co.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=comm2&wr_id=962645) smarter, and more knowledgeable about our shared domain than I will ever be. ’t figure out how to write things". And not only as a justification for types, mind you. It’s why Lamport advocates for formal specification-not because he’s so god-damned brilliant that he actually knows how to write math and I don’t, but because he recognizes that even his ability to reason about and design software is insufficient without mechanical help.I think this is ultimately the most, maybe the only, mature way to view programming languages and techniques. It’s why testing is also a great practice. The basic insight that:- I am not quite as smart as I felt whenever I wrote whatever I wrote;- I am not quite so smart that any amount of education or experience will cleanse me of basic lapses of reasoning and memory;- I am capable of learning pretty much anything, and no amount of learning will make me much smarter than I am now. 2 things in his monkey brain at any time? ", to which I will respectfully demur. I like programming, and I think I’m good at it; I’m just stupid and I have a lousy memory. Instead I will do what my dumb human forebears have done for millenia, and use tools. This is rather absurd and I won’t address it any more than to point out that many ordinary programmers intuitively grasp the basic value of safety and specificity, which is why in Python it is widely considered extremely bad practice to write except: or except Exception: even though having to specify all of the exception classes we are interested in is arguably a safety that we could override at no loss of expressiveness.
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I spent 2020 writing a 500-pages book about JavaScript Testing. In this blog post, I'll explain my writing routine - or system, whatever you want to call it - and other seemingly unrelated habits that I consider have been crucial for writing such a long book. If you're thinking about writing a book or have already started, this blog post may be helpful to you. Besides explaining rules you could adopt, this post can shed some light on how much work it takes to write a book. I've divided this post into two parts. The first describes the writing routine or system itself. [The Genius Switch cognitive training](https://ceowiki.org/wiki/User:MargaritaDurgin) second part describes other seemingly unrelated habits that I consider to have been crucial for writing. I'm not a doctor and this content should not be considered medical advice. Please see this website's health and medical disclaimer before proceeding. My writing routine can be summarised in a single sentence: consistency beats enthusiasm. To me, writing is just like running.
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Getting out of bed early in the morning requires herculean effort. Then, the first mile of your run sucks. Eventually, when you're already out there running, and you've got that first mile in, you're happy you did it. The thing with running is that those early mornings or first miles never get easier no matter how many times you do it. Instead, you remember how good it felt yesterday, so you put on your shoes and head outside to seek your reward. The same principle applies to writing. As time passes, you rely less on motivation and more on discipline. In this section, I'll clarify what " discipline" means to me. 1. Writing for at least 45 minutes every day. 2. Always [writing](https://www.search.com/web?q=writing) at the same time. 3. Keeping my writing environment consistent. 4. Setting deadlines and holding myself accountable. For each of these rules or habits, I've written a section detailing it and explaining why it worked for me. From the day I started writing Testing JavaScript Applications, I committed to writing every day for at least 45-minutes. During those 45 minutes, I didn't care about how many words I committed to paper (or hard drive).
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I just had to do my best to write as much as I could. If it meant I had to stare at a blinking cursor for 45 minutes, then I did that. If I couldn't write anything meaningful in 45 minutes, I probably wouldn't write anything decent for the next few hours. Therefore, it was better to close up my Mac, walk away, and grab a cup of tea. In case I did write few great paragraphs, I accepted the blessing from the gods of prose and churned out as much content as I could until I hit a creative block or was too tired to proceed. I chose to set myself a 45-minute goal because that's the time it usually takes for me to get "into the zone" and figure out whether I'm going to be productive that day. In case you're planning to write regularly too, I'd recommend you do the same: set a time goal, not a word goal.
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Time goals are more effective because they force you to give yourself the chance of entering into a flow state. If you can't get into a flow state in the allotted time, you will most likely produce crappy content, which you'll delete later anyway. It's not worth it to force yourself to be productive when you don't have the cognitive resources to do so. It's better not to write a thousand words than to write a thousand words and delete all of them later. In the past, my therapist used the term "efforting" to describe the act of spending long periods trying to be productive despite not obtaining any meaningful results. Efforting is precisely what you do not want to do. Sticking to a fixed writing schedule helped me be more consistent. Having to write always at the same time has diminished the effort necessary to get started. All of a sudden, writing for 45 minutes didn't require any willpower.
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