The Art of Doing One Thing Well
Okay, but what one thing? In my last post, I wrote about the problems I was creating for myself by trying to learn everything at once. Which summarised is just that I was spreading myself too thin. Too many topics, too many projects, and too many things I thought I should know. So I've been trying to follow my own advice. I've stopped chasing every new technology that catches my attention and…
The author reflects on their journey of trying to learn everything at once, which led to spreading themselves too thin. They realized that the problem was not about learning too much but about what they should focus on. The turning point came when artificial intelligence (AI) became a major part of their daily work. The AI, Claude, impressed them with its ability to write code quickly, but they began noticing that it sometimes took shortcuts and didn't follow established guidelines.
This observation made them realize that understanding how to use technology is important, but it's even more crucial to understand the underlying problem it's trying to solve.
The author now seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the systems they work on, questioning the decisions behind them and evaluating the consequences of potential changes. They want to move beyond simply knowing how to use a technology and instead focus on understanding the problems it addresses. The ultimate goal is to become better at making and evaluating engineering decisions, not to stop writing code or to know every technology that exists.
They acknowledge that this is just the beginning of their journey and that there's still much to learn.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
