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Discussion on: The Joy of Programming to Learn

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Jason C. McDonald • Edited

Great article!

I, too, code for the experience of exploration and discovery. We have to challenge our assumptions and push the limits to really expand, something I talk about in my speech, The Cake Is A Lie.

The more an idea, pattern, or algorithm is used, the more demanding I am of that thing to prove itself as "the best solution". Too often, we assume that the solution is X because we always do it that way. I've challenged sorting algorithms, the standard library, language design, design patterns, and coding methodologies, and that questioning usually pays off. (See PawLIB for several bunch of examples of that; we actually beat performance on C++'s standard data structures.)

Other times, the thing turns out to indeed be the best, and my new idea fails. But those failures are almost as intriguing and rewarding as the successes - I walk away understanding the topic many times deeper than I did when I started!