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GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
raddevus9-Nov-23 9:44
mvaraddevus9-Nov-23 9:44 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Gerry Schmitz9-Nov-23 8:45
mveGerry Schmitz9-Nov-23 8:45 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
theoldfool8-Nov-23 10:26
professionaltheoldfool8-Nov-23 10:26 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Amarnath S8-Nov-23 14:05
professionalAmarnath S8-Nov-23 14:05 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
raddevus8-Nov-23 15:13
mvaraddevus8-Nov-23 15:13 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Amarnath S8-Nov-23 15:25
professionalAmarnath S8-Nov-23 15:25 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
swampwiz8-Nov-23 17:35
swampwiz8-Nov-23 17:35 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Bob Grommes9-Nov-23 6:17
Bob Grommes9-Nov-23 6:17 
I had an experience similar to this back in the 90's. A CS post grad fresh out of the local state U had been hired to create a system to process a large volume of data coming from hundreds of different sources. It wasn't getting anywhere, the developer was deflecting and delaying, and I was brought in to assist and assess.

The first thing I noticed is that the app was pretty good ... a bit overthought, arguably with overuse of inheritance perhaps but this guy was a newly-minted dev working on his first real-world project (but at least it was greenfield).

The second thing I noticed is that it had not been compiled in at least the past couple of months, which means it hadn't been tested. I compiled it and there were a handful of syntax errors and the like. Cleaned those up, ran some tests, and it was actually working.

When I asked the dev why it hadn't been compiled he reacted in horror ... he did not like compiler errors, he said, and he always makes everything perfect before compiling his code.

Long story short, they had a working product less than 2 weeks after I came on board. I tried to show the kid how to work in a real-world business environment, how to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, etc., but he was having none of it. He quit in protest and went back to graduate school at some other university in another state and for all I know, all these years later is still doing perfect ivory tower theoretical work somewhere. I went on to specialize in the industry and have rewritten that system three times for four different companies in the past 25 years.

So this kid was probably on the spectrum or suffering from OCD or both, but the reason doesn't matter so much as that he had actually created a credible system that was nearly production ready, but was unable to pull the trigger on it, just like the guy in the OP's story.

I think the term of art for this is "approach avoidance". Some people are terrified of actually releasing their work into the big wild messy world. And it's probably more common in our craft than in many others because being compulsive and perfectionist is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It attracts perfectionists to the work but puts them off actually finishing it.
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
jschell9-Nov-23 7:51
jschell9-Nov-23 7:51 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
raddevus9-Nov-23 9:43
mvaraddevus9-Nov-23 9:43 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Amarnath S10-Nov-23 6:36
professionalAmarnath S10-Nov-23 6:36 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Shmoken999-Nov-23 11:36
Shmoken999-Nov-23 11:36 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Shmoken999-Nov-23 11:36
Shmoken999-Nov-23 11:36 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
Shmoken999-Nov-23 11:35
Shmoken999-Nov-23 11:35 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
charlieg10-Nov-23 3:36
charlieg10-Nov-23 3:36 
GeneralRe: An inspirational story: tenacity Pin
englebart12-Nov-23 5:41
professionalenglebart12-Nov-23 5:41 
QuestionWhat the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Nov-23 22:51
mvahoney the codewitch7-Nov-23 22:51 
AnswerRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
Richard Deeming7-Nov-23 22:56
mveRichard Deeming7-Nov-23 22:56 
GeneralRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Nov-23 23:42
mvahoney the codewitch7-Nov-23 23:42 
GeneralRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
raddevus8-Nov-23 2:51
mvaraddevus8-Nov-23 2:51 
GeneralRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
Rick York8-Nov-23 5:10
mveRick York8-Nov-23 5:10 
AnswerRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
Amarnath S7-Nov-23 23:29
professionalAmarnath S7-Nov-23 23:29 
GeneralRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
honey the codewitch8-Nov-23 1:34
mvahoney the codewitch8-Nov-23 1:34 
GeneralRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
raddevus8-Nov-23 2:54
mvaraddevus8-Nov-23 2:54 
GeneralRe: What the heck does "serverless" mean? Pin
jeron18-Nov-23 8:00
jeron18-Nov-23 8:00 

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