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Getting things done? Hey, slow down there, speedy...

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Edvard:
I was browsing CodeProject News and stumbled across this interesting tidbit:

Whether you’re knitting or programming, working faster will only slow you down. Or at least that’s what Jeffrey Ventrella argues. In “The Case for Slow Programming“, the tech author makes the claim that software developers need to slow down if they want to quicker results.

    “Slow down, son. You’ll get the job done faster.” – Jeffrey Ventrella’s father
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JaxEnter - Do Slow Programmers Get There Faster?


Interesting little concept, which assures me that when it takes me a full week before I begin to fully grok a new function, I'm doing just fine.
That led me to the source post here:

Jeffrey Ventrella - The Case for Slow Programming
Many of these coders believed in the fallacy that all engineers are fungible, and that no one should be responsible for any particular aspect of the code; any coder should be able to change any part of the code at any time. After all, we have awesome services like github to manage and merge any number of asynchronous contributions from any number of coders. As long as everyone makes frequent commits, and doesn’t break anything, everything will come out just fine.

Bullshit.
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Nice, well thought out, and he makes his case.  Didn't take all that long to read, neither.
and here:

SlowDownNow.org - The Institute of Not Doing Much
Slow Manifesto

There are those who urge us to speed. We resist!

We shall not flag or fail. We shall slow down in the office, and on the roads. We shall slow down with growing confidence when all those around us are in a shrill state of hyperactivity (signifying nothing). We shall defend our state of calm, whatever the cost may be. We shall slow down in the fields and in the streets, we shall slow down in the hills, we shall never surrender!
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;D :Thmbsup:

Fun reading, and the links are worth a nice at-your-own-pace peruse, but what really nailed me was point #3 of the Manifesto (emphasis mine):

3. Ponder, take your time. Do not be pushed into answering questions. A response is not the same as an answer.
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You could have pushed me over with a feather after reading that line.  So much is hanging on response time, that it's no wonder dreams are dying with imaginations restricted to the capabilities of our tools, conversations reduced to disconnected 140-character missives, and yet time is still such a precious commodity.  
So... I can't stand another man-minute; that's it, I'm done.  I'm going to fully enjoy picking and choosing my technology based not on how new it is, how fast it goes, or how productive it promises to make me, but rather how much I enjoy it.
Don't worry, I'm not going to suddenly engage in a lifestyle of frequent naps, but I now have ammunition for defending my position when others insist I "get out of the way"...
Or maybe I'm just getting old... very well then, I aim to enjoy every minute of it.
 :Thmbsup:

Stoic Joker:
I'll agree without reading it, as I've always believed that frenetic motion is mostly wasted.

Robert Heinlein had a foot note in one of his books about this very thing that I ran across in my teens. Over the years it has saved me much frustration in realizing that - quite frequently - slow, really is much faster.

ewemoa:
Don't just do something, stand there!

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