Learn from Your Mistakes or Other People's Mistakes?

 

It's good to learn from your mistakes. 

It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.

Warren Buffett

Your mistakes aren’t the best teacher—just the most expensive.

You can start at the bottom of the mountain and make every mistake from scratch on the way to the top, or you can take a sherpa with you and master the best of what other people have already figured out.

The successful learn vicariously; the foolish insist on first hand pain.

Farnam Street

Don’t try to figure everything out on your own. Hire advisors who’ve been there before and can offer insights you wouldn’t get otherwise. Test advisors before committing—do a workshop to see how they add value before making a long-term hire. And always be evaluating if they’re still contributing.

Lenny's Newsletter

It's a (human) process

A couple of days ago I had just finished coding a feature in EZchecklist that I'd wanted to do for a long time. It took about 5 hours to get working, and it looked good, but the underlying coding was so ugly that I couldn't bear it if anyone ever saw it. The odds of someone seeing the ugliness were extremely remote, but before I went to sleep I promised myself to rewrite the code so that it was more presentable (to myself, at least).

That opportunity came the next morning because I just couldn't live another day with all that ugly code living inside my computer, even though it was invisible to the world except me, of course.  Another five hours and it was done.  Two hundred plus lines of code replaced with 39 lines.

Feeling much better about the transformation, I then had the thought that chatGPT 4.o might be able to do better, so I copied and pasted the code into the AI and asked it to optimize it... if it can. AI got it down to about 18 lines and did it in about 5 seconds, tops, but it's not as easy to follow as my code.  Sure, it would run a bit faster but speed is not the issue here.

Having a coder to coder chat with AI about the various approaches to the problem was amazingly educational.  For me.  I doubt AI learned anything, and sure didn't have that warm fuzzy feeling of getting something to work.

Maybe I'll go back later and implement AI's optimized coding.  Maybe not.  There's something to be said for pride of human workmanship rather than the sterile perfection of AI.

And I'm happy that, at 82, my mind is still capable of learning new approaches to coding.

Note: I asked AI to illustrate the concept. It took about 10 seconds. I couldn't have done it in 10 years.

Full Moon Brings Major Update to EZchecklist

Click Here to See the details at the EZchecklist page

Checklists for software development

(October 30 is National Checklist Day)

ThinkPlanDoRepeat - Shortest possible checklist for Su0ccess at Anything

The checklist is one of the most high powered productivity tools ever discovered.

Brian Tracy

No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.

Charlie Munger 

Introduction to Checklists

Big Picture  

   What is a checklist - Wikipedia

   The Checklist Manifesto, How to get things right - in depth, the best book about checklists
   To Do List vs. Checklist - what is the difference?
   Advantages of using checklists - from Quora
   Quotations about checklists from the Checklist Manifesto

Who needs checklists?
   We don't need no stinkin' checklists! - if you're like these guys, you can forget about it.

Origin of checklists
   How the Pilot's Checklist Came About - people have to die before anything changes

Poor Examples of Software Development Checklists

Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it. (Conway's Law)

Planning

   App Development checklist - from Enola Labs, What to consider before beginning
   20 Things to do before you build an app - from Blue Cloud Solutions, Mobile development

Design

   Usability checklist - from Stay in Tech, Catch common usability problems before user testing

Programming
   This is NOT a checklist; it is a list of Do and Don't, right and wrong, but not a checklist.
   This is a checklist. Not a great one, but you will notice the difference.

Testing
   US Department of Energy software testing checklist

Deployment
   Ultimate Checklist for App Deployment Success - from Stackify (Not app specific)

Build Your Own Checklists

   A checklist for building checklists - of course there is one of these!

   Checklist.com - very basic, free, and worth what you pay for it
   Checkli.com - very basic, free, and worth what you pay for it
   Process Street - better, freemium model, inexpensive
   Google Spreadsheets - free, basic yet very powerful, sharable, recommended

Checklist Secret Sauce by DoubleM

Research. Google for existing checklists to do what you need done. Modify to suit. No ego.

Begin it Now. Any checklist is better than no checklist, if continuously improved with feedback.

Delegate. Every team member has responsibility to create/use/improve checklists.

Manage. Team managers must approve changes, and for adherence to standards.

Reward. Recognition and rewards for excellence in checklist development, use, feedback.

Standardize. Add the following to your checklist for building checklists.

   

   Standard Heading at the top of every checklist 

      Checklist name

      Checklist number (Form number)

      Department

      Responsible Person - Who is the "owner" of this checklist

      Date last updated.

      Link to Change log - (Who made the change, When, What changed, Why)

      Signature of team member Who executed this checklist, When, and for What job.

   

   Sections. Break up the list for readability. Lots of white space.

   Standard Formatting

      Standard font, point size, colors, links, etc.

      Headings for sections. Indent items under sections.

      Keep it short. One line per item.  Maximum of 10 items per section. 

      Action verb to start each item, if possible. See above.

      Graphics, charts, photos. What is that about a picture is worth... how many words?

      Paginate.

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Update:

11/2/2017 - First time user experience for product success

Clarity is the Holy Grail of Communication

 

In the search of Product - Market Fit, clarity of communication is essential.

The Test

 The test of a business man 

is not whether he can make money in one or two boom years, 

or can make money through the luck of getting into the field first, 

but whether in a highly competitive field, 

without having any initial advantage over his competitors, 

he can outdistance them in a perfect honourable way 

and keep the respect of himself and of his community.

Harvey Firestone

AI is the new (fill in the blank)

crypto, web3.0, cloud, mobile, internet, Y2K, dot com, PC... wheel, fire, shoes, spear, club...