Impractical Thinking
I overheard my partner that day, telling an intern to be practical. This guy was doing some web development using Ruby On Rails. I had just asked him to try it out, to see whether this platform could really speed things up.
Now, impractical thinking might not apply to all programmers, but sometimes, you just got to be the opposite. I have a habit of throwing off whatever I have known, and try to figure out, whether there are newer ways to solve the problem.
Telling programmers to be practical is like limiting their capabilities to think further ahead. It's like telling an artist to paint a portrait using a limited color set. He can't go on explore mode using his/her imagination.
Problems are aplenty, but how you solve it requires creativity. And creativity does not come easy, or just when think you want to be productive. In fact, creativity and productivity are opposite of each other. If you want to know what productive means, take a look at the factory. I used to work at one, manufacturing air conditioners. And I had observed how engineers will try to make a process faster. The main thing, is how you handle the assembly line, how fast you can get your raw materials coming in. If you can manage these well, productivity kicks in.
But creativity is a whole new ball game. It requires thinking of solving problems, using methods that needs exploration, and which are, might be totally new to yourself.
For eg, I was thinking of this web UI which list down a list of file names, and those file names can be changed via the web interface. I had done it using the previous method, which is the user clicks on the link 'Rename' and this will fetch another page with the rename functionality.
I did played with some ajax, made some calls to the server, and had it work. So I was thinking, could i just rename the file from the web page instead? Just like when you rename a file in windows explorer?
So, off I went, figuring out how to do this using ajax. And the results were good. I had a working interface where you could just rename the file by clicking on the filename(which is a text input), and once the focus changes from the input text, a request is sent via ajax to rename it.
So, to be really creative, you just have to be impractical in your thinking. While these might not apply to all areas of your life, but it's good to throw out old thinking, and put in a set of new ones.
Now, impractical thinking might not apply to all programmers, but sometimes, you just got to be the opposite. I have a habit of throwing off whatever I have known, and try to figure out, whether there are newer ways to solve the problem.
Telling programmers to be practical is like limiting their capabilities to think further ahead. It's like telling an artist to paint a portrait using a limited color set. He can't go on explore mode using his/her imagination.
Problems are aplenty, but how you solve it requires creativity. And creativity does not come easy, or just when think you want to be productive. In fact, creativity and productivity are opposite of each other. If you want to know what productive means, take a look at the factory. I used to work at one, manufacturing air conditioners. And I had observed how engineers will try to make a process faster. The main thing, is how you handle the assembly line, how fast you can get your raw materials coming in. If you can manage these well, productivity kicks in.
But creativity is a whole new ball game. It requires thinking of solving problems, using methods that needs exploration, and which are, might be totally new to yourself.
For eg, I was thinking of this web UI which list down a list of file names, and those file names can be changed via the web interface. I had done it using the previous method, which is the user clicks on the link 'Rename' and this will fetch another page with the rename functionality.
I did played with some ajax, made some calls to the server, and had it work. So I was thinking, could i just rename the file from the web page instead? Just like when you rename a file in windows explorer?
So, off I went, figuring out how to do this using ajax. And the results were good. I had a working interface where you could just rename the file by clicking on the filename(which is a text input), and once the focus changes from the input text, a request is sent via ajax to rename it.
So, to be really creative, you just have to be impractical in your thinking. While these might not apply to all areas of your life, but it's good to throw out old thinking, and put in a set of new ones.
posted by Steven Yip at 5:19 PM
1 Comments:
dear steven, i think you misinterpret "Impractical". And i think you misunderstand what your partner trying to tell the intern when he asked him to be "practical". You know, I think he was asking the intern to be using ruby-on-rails to solve "practical problem", not asking him to be "practical in his thinking" in finding ways to solve the problem.
Even if he really mean so as you presume so, practical problem solving doesn't mean you cannot be creative nor does it mean you gonna be two feet on the ground. Coz practical doesn't mean being conventional, it just simply means - Solving the problem within a framework with finite resources, which most of the time, can be defined by finite time, man/brain power and money. That's what i think your partner mean by "practical".
IMHO, better way to put what you want to say (correct me if i'm wrong, as i don't like to assume), is "unconventional thinking" instead of "impractical thinking". Doesn't it sounds better and also make more sense?
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