A new report by The New York Times has revealed that while DOGE did fire lots of federal workers, slash budgets, and cancel grants and programs, the end result not only didn't save the $1 trillion Musk promised -- federal spending actually went up.
I’m not “a coder” in a professional sense but I’ve derived great joy from playing around with code in my spare time over many years. When I come back to a project I’ve created over many hours, but several years in the past, such that I’ve forgotten why I’ve done things the way I’ve done them, there’s a very strong desire to just discard everything and start over. As though this time around I’ll be able to find perfect solutions to problems where last time it was all kludges hacks and work arounds.
I’ll acknowledge that yes, each iteration of a thing one builds is an incremental improvement on the last. However, I don’t think that really explains whats going on here.
My best guess at an explanation is that the process of building or creating or implementing something is far less mentally taxing, or perhaps more rewarding, than the process of trying to understand something.
I agree what you brought up of bigger rewarding feelings from new things compared to maintaining existing things is a significant component. Politicians are more reliably elected by running on a new highway, new strip mall, new water treatment plant, etc, even when that money would provide more service to more people if spent keeping up existing infrastructure instead.
I agree that it’s inherent to human psychology.
I’m not “a coder” in a professional sense but I’ve derived great joy from playing around with code in my spare time over many years. When I come back to a project I’ve created over many hours, but several years in the past, such that I’ve forgotten why I’ve done things the way I’ve done them, there’s a very strong desire to just discard everything and start over. As though this time around I’ll be able to find perfect solutions to problems where last time it was all kludges hacks and work arounds.
I’ll acknowledge that yes, each iteration of a thing one builds is an incremental improvement on the last. However, I don’t think that really explains whats going on here.
My best guess at an explanation is that the process of building or creating or implementing something is far less mentally taxing, or perhaps more rewarding, than the process of trying to understand something.
I agree what you brought up of bigger rewarding feelings from new things compared to maintaining existing things is a significant component. Politicians are more reliably elected by running on a new highway, new strip mall, new water treatment plant, etc, even when that money would provide more service to more people if spent keeping up existing infrastructure instead.