Tenacity is the short version of what Norvig is saying.

A curious thing that happens every time I write code is that some unexpected error occurs. Sometimes it's trivial stuff, other times it's deep structure. Either way, you have to be bothered to make changes and test them. Sometimes this tree gets very very deep. See an error, Google it, find an example that mentions a new keyword, explore that cave for a day, return to previous branch, etc.

Something about this is related to addiction, I think I'm somehow fortunate to be addicted to something useful rather than just some molecule.