Ask HN: How Do You Deal with Perfectionism in Coding? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How Do You Deal with Perfectionism in Coding?

4 pointsOulaX8 comments

I have reached a point where the perfectionism is hindering my ability to finish projects on time, learn new materials / technologies, and enjoy programming in general.

A good example is the recent release of Advent of Code, I decided to take up the challenge, I spent way too much time trying to figure out idiomatic / pythonic ways to solve a for loop / opening a file for example, whereas I could of easily spent solving the problem itself.

Most of the time when I don't reach a perfect solution I just leave working on the project altogether.

Am I the only one dealing with this? Do you have any recommendations to overcome such a bad habit?

P.S: I am not medically diagnosed as a person with OCD, IRL I am a simple messy guy, this habit just exists in coding.

For Advent of Code specifically, I get it working as hacky as possible, then iterate on the solution to get it where I want

It is worth checking if you are:

A. Falling into perfectionism.

B. Putting unhealthy time pressure on yourself.

C. Worrying too much that people will think of you as perfectionist.

Sounds like you need to get more fluent with Python.

What's the best way to learn "PROPER" Python? I am doing exercises a lot but not learning anything new, because my current knowledge mostly solves problems. Any tips / recommendations?

There's an O'reilly book called Fluent Python. You might start with that.

Thanks for the suggestion.

There are two kinds of language. (1) Those with a good manual, (2) Those without a good manual.

Python and Java are type 2 languages, Clojure and Javascript are type 2 languages.

In a type 1 language you want to look up answers in the official manual because if you do that you'll always get the right answers!

Read the Python manual, read it again, then read it again. Get in the habit of looking up answers in the Python manual, don't look them up on Google (you'll waste time with splogs,) don't look them up on Stack Overflow (the answers are wrong.)

Python is a mess of bad design, it gives you plenty of rope to hang yourself regarding approaches to a problem. I suggest learning a language like Go, where the Python motto "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it" is actually true.

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