Coders at Work

Coders at Work

Reflections on the Craft of Programming

Peter Seibel

Expert Intuition

Expertise defies formalization; conscious effort defeats itself.

I have noticed over the years, the really good code I would write was when I'm in complete flow—just totally unaware of time: not even really thinking about the program, just sitting there in a relaxed state just typing this stuff and watching it come out on the screen as I type it in. That code's going to be OK. The stuff where you can't concentrate and something's saying, “No, no, no, this is wrong, wrong, wrong”—I was ignoring that years ago.
Intuitive Flow

Mastery means bypassing conscious thought entirely.

I have noticed over the years, the really good code I would write was when I'm in complete flow—just totally unaware of time: not even really thinking about the program, just sitting there in a relaxed state just typing this stuff and watching it come out on the screen as I type it in. ... Now I can't program anymore if it says, “No.” ... I'd say it's an awful lot of intuition, just knowing what's right.
Legibility Tax

Standardization enables scale but destroys local knowledge.

I can think of lots of areas where trying to standardize, trying to all go in one direction, has suppressed creativity. ... In a much bigger sense I hate to see computer-science departments that feel their role is to prepare people to work in an industry and the industry is going that way and therefore we have to teach our students that way. It's exactly the wrong thing to do. What you should be doing with your students is teaching them to think generally—think outside the box and plot the other courses we should be pursuing.
Illegibility Premium

Practical knowledge defeats rationalized systems.

When I was at what I would consider the peak of my abilities, I had extremely trustworthy intuition. I would do things and they would just turn out right. ... Some of it, I'm sure, was experience that had simply gotten internalized so far down that I didn't have conscious access to the process.
Perfectionist's Trap

Pursuit of perfection prevents completion.

At the end of the day, ship the fucking thing! It's great to rewrite your code and make it cleaner and by the third time it'll actually be pretty. But that's not the point—you're not here to write code; you're here to ship products.