On Coding, Ego and Attention

I get and agree with what the author is saying here, but I also think a big part of this is that in software engineering, so much of what we do is ephemeral. If you&#x27;re a carpenter you&#x27;ll know if you&#x27;re good or not. You&#x27;ll be able to do stuff like frame a house, replace a door, etc. And then when someone asks you how long it will take to frame a house, how much it will cost, what supplies&#x2F;staff you need and so on, you&#x27;ll be able to say.<p>We&#x27;ve been doing CRUD in our industry for decades. How can we not just say &quot;this is how you do CRUD, we&#x27;re done w&#x2F; that now&quot;. We&#x27;ve been doing data serialization for decades now. How can we not just say &quot;this is how you serialize&quot;?<p>There are communities where this is the case. Why have we abandoned them? Why have we abandoned that knowledge and experience to reimplement things in language X or using platform Y?<p>We might not like to hear it, but my guess is it&#x27;s a culture problem. They say the way to get ahead at Google is to build a new successful product. Is that the same thing we&#x27;re doing? It&#x27;s easier to get ahead by building a new Z framework than to become a core committer on X framework from 10 years ago? Are most X frameworks run by toxic communities? Is there something specific about software that means tenured projects become less and less useful&#x2F;maintainable&#x2F;understandable over time?<p>There&#x27;s something in here that&#x27;s specific to SWE. I don&#x27;t know exactly what it is but, I think we should figure it out.

In my experience, the best way to insulate yourself from the pangs of imposter syndrome and unproductive self-doubt is with experience of past successes.<p>Early in my software engineering career I would constantly and painfully wonder if I was actually capable of fixing a certain bug or solving a new or difficult problem. But then after working hard on a solution, 99% of the time it would work out. After going through this process of debilitating self-doubt and eventual success over the course of years, it has become much more manageable.<p>I still sometimes panic when initially faced with a very difficult programming problem, but I can put those fears to rest much more easily by saying, &quot;ok, I&#x27;ve solved hard problems before. I may not know how to solve this particular problem yet, but I feel confident that I will be able to figure it out just like I did in the past with difficult problems X, Y and Z.&quot;<p>At the risk of sounding pedantic, part of leaving the beginner phase — and the true value of experience — is developing a kind of armor against those feelings of inadequacy (of course you don&#x27;t want this to go too far into feelings of overconfidence or an inability to reflect when things do go wrong).<p>I also think it&#x27;s the responsibility of more senior engineers to recognize when a more junior teammate might be having those self-doubts and be empathetic while helping them build up their own successes.

I feel like for me, reading and writing articles like this are a major source of distractions. I often find myself reading articles like this, lessons of self-improvement and tips of motivation and ways to be a better programmer, instead of doing what actually makes me a better programmer (actually programming). To extend upon the article, I feel like one of the easiest distractions from self improvement is constantly reading about self improvement. Not to say that the lessons in these articles are a sham, but that there&#x27;s a point where the idea of and dream of improving yourself becomes a dangerously stealthy distraction.

Big tired after an intense day, and I haven&#x27;t really sat down and digested the article, but it seems close enough that I think my - admittedly primitive - tip can be of relevance.<p>If you get stuck, you tell yourself in whatever way you want, and honestly, some version of the following: &quot;I don&#x27;t understand this thing that is happening, but I know there is a cause. It does not happen without cause.&quot;<p>Honestly, it&#x27;s a bit odd, and I don&#x27;t know if that&#x27;s the best way to express it in English. Nevertheless, several people have some back to me and told me that it has helped them.<p>My initial inspiration, and hypothesis is that the simple acknowledgement that I don&#x27;t understand the problem, and that the problem still - despite my lack of understanding - still follow the laws of cause and effect, somehow temporarily halts our brains tendency to protect our ego at almost any cost, logic be damned.<p>I started trying this out after puzzling about why it&#x27;s unreasonably common to figure out the answer to something only moments after you get up from your desk to go ask someone else for help, even when you might have worked with it for hours. It had to have a reason, although I don&#x27;t know exactly what it is!

I love the introspection and positive attitude in this post.<p>One thing I would add is that intrinsic motivation seems to be framed and activated very differently depending on one&#x27;s personality. I find myself performing best when I&#x27;m on the edge of failure, trying to catch up to the high performers, and when recalling past times when I overcame failure or adversity. Comparing myself to the group described as demotivating in the post is the best motivator for me. And then there are little tweaks to one&#x27;s environment (for me it&#x27;s coffee, exercise, occasional travel, specific movies and music) that I find end up making an enormous difference in motivation, focus, and overall mental state. I suspect this has a lot to do with personal physiology and the environment in which you grew up.<p>With that caveat, the post is incredibly thoughtful and helpful, and I really enjoyed reading it.

The part about problems being either fun challenges or a nightmare really resonated with me. That&#x27;s why pair programming is so important in my opinion, if you work too long in a silo the magic, fun, craft whatever of programming fades away. Just watching a coworker code or talking through problems with one can bring back that spirit of fun challenges though. Engineer morale is super important.

I read this, and I have also read &quot;The Practicing Mind&quot; which is exactly what this post is about. My issue isn&#x27;t in understanding the premise. It all makes sense, and I get a sense of &quot;ah hah!&quot; every time I read it (I&#x27;ve read it twice).<p>The issue for me is that I really struggle to turn this theory in to effective practice. Each time after reading &quot;The Practicing Mind&quot; I have tried to cognitively remind myself whenever I was frustrated, to stop and look at the problem as a beginner would, to drop my ego, etc.<p>The problem is that it would sort of help, temporarily. I&#x27;d find myself a little bit better at getting a solid day of work done, but not dramatically better. After a week or so, I&#x27;d forget to even do the exercises, and I&#x27;d be back to struggling.<p>What honestly helps more than anything, the &quot;magic bullet&quot; really is pharmacology (aderall). For me, it somehow calms me down. I don&#x27;t feel more energy, I feel tranquil, and able to let defeat roll off my shoulders.<p>Sadly, taking aderall is not a sustainable solution. Amphetamine is a neurotoxin which raises blood pressure. Not to mention, I don&#x27;t like being &quot;tranquil&quot; for anything other than my work. I like my &#x27;normal&#x27; state of semi-uncontrolled energy, which is great for exercising and video games. I&#x27;d like to be able to turn this feeling on or off, and taking a medication doesn&#x27;t allow for this.<p>So I tend to see saw between three states... 1) Struggling at work, barely getting by, quality of life sucks. 2) On medication, happy at work, feeling productive and peaceful, but desire to get off medication 3) Off medication, using &quot;Beginners Mind&quot; but find my ability to implement it in a way that is strongly effective, absent.

This post did not reach the conclusion I was expecting based on the title. For me, I think I&#x27;ve largely experienced the opposite relationship between ego and my programming productivity.<p>Learning to program as a kid was probably one of the most exciting developments in my life up to that point, and I expect that&#x27;s true for many people on this forum. I originally attributed this to programming&#x27;s usefulness, and the mathematical beauty of watching all the pieces fall into place when solving a problem. And those were surely both important motivators, but, looking back, the primary motivator was the pure power trip of it. Programming is extremely powerful (software is eating the world, after all), and I could immediately sense that, and that power was the biggest high I got from it.<p>Throughout my teens and twenties, I didn&#x27;t really consider this, and just followed the high, and it led me to develop skills and a successful career as a programmer. For me, it was a positive feedback loop, where the more I put into programming, the better I got, and the bigger the ego boost. Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, it got to a point where my inflated ego started getting in the way of my personal relationships, and even my self perception. I considered myself a great programmer, but not a very good person. I became quite self-loathing for many years, but I&#x27;ve noticed that&#x27;s healed up after moving away from programming as a primary job responsibility, and my personal relationships have benefited, too.<p>I still love programming for the beauty of it, and I still dive into little personal programming projects a few times a year. Part of me wishes I did so more often, but I&#x27;m held back because the only way I&#x27;ve found to get through a project of any duration longer than a few days is to basically develop delusions of grandeur about it. Programming is fun and beautiful, but very hard, too, and somehow without the promise of the conference talk, or the influential git repo coming out of it, there&#x27;s just too much friction. So, more often than not, these days, I simply don&#x27;t bother. I guess with my current middle-aged testosterone levels, I&#x27;d rather keep my family and friends than be king of the world.<p>(That said, if anyone out there finds this relatable, but has been able to push through and develop a healthier, less ego-reliant, relationship with programming, I&#x27;d live to hear about it!)

&gt; My ego creates a tight bond between my work and my identity. Linking my self worth to how well I do my job. This then creates the need to track my performance. To keep score. Spinning up mental processes that consume valuable resources which make staying on task very difficult.<p>I think this part is definitely true for me...<p>I have let &quot;notice when you are confused&quot; and &quot;understand the impact of your work&quot; and &quot;make sure you are building the right thing&quot; and &quot;make sure you know stakeholder needs&quot; get kinda etched into my identity. I keep wanting to _understand_ the systems I work with and I keep getting distracted by noticing problems with its UX or implications to business process.<p>I can turn that voice off with deliberate effort, but I don&#x27;t know how to get it to stay off.<p>Does anyone else have any methods for more permanently-silencing UX-worries and just cranking out code?

I am not convinced by the article. For one, I don&#x27;t think beginners mind is necessarily superior to expert mind. After all, why would society value the expert more than the novice? Has anyone actually checked to see if experts don&#x27;t have an even greater openness towards learning and novelty?<p>About giving up on projects and how the ego plays into that, I don&#x27;t think in such black and white - giving up = bad, persevering = good. Sometimes you need to give up in order to find a better approach. There are reasons why this instinct is present in our species (something to do with the exploration exploitation trade-off). We can&#x27;t paint over it with self help advice.<p>Comparing yourself to others is bad? Why? It&#x27;s an evolutionary advantage to learn from the experiences of others. By doing comparisons you can calibrate your values. Competition is a great motivator. Having a row model can be fast way towards improvement. Comparison between peers is like a second order metric, first order metrics relying only on self.<p>The advice about not comparing yourself to others is useful only in a limited setting - where you devalue your accomplishments and have nothing to gain from it. But when comparison motivates you to improve, then it&#x27;s actually not bad. Also when comparison prompts you to take action and avoid a crisis you could be spared a lot of suffering. Comparison can act like an alarm. Another function of comparison is to make groups more cohesive - if they form a common culture they can function better - so aligning oneself to the group can be beneficial for all.

Pretty interesting article. If this spoke to you, I recommend reading &quot;The drama of the gifted child&quot; by Alice Miller.<p>Don&#x27;t be put off by the title, it&#x27;s a wonderful read no matter if you think you&#x27;re gifted or not.

This is so critical and so easy to forget. Every day is an effort to remind oneself of these basic truths.<p>“Whenever distress or displeasure arises in your mind, remind yourself, “This is only my interpretation, not reality itself.” Then ask whether it falls within or outside your sphere of power. And, if it is beyond your power to control, let it go.” ― Epictetus

I needed to read this. Just today I realized today that my ego was distracting me from learning and being effective at my job. I am a new dev, &lt;1 yr experience, and I&#x27;ve often found myself not reaching out for help when I need it. For no good reason, of course, but for fear of outing myself as not knowing something I perceive others might view as basic.<p>I need to teach myself to take the ego hit and that in the long term it&#x27;ll pay off more than independently struggling on a problem.

&quot;This is ego distraction. It’s about putting off uncertainty till later to buy temporary relief. To protect our ego from a perceived threat. Things like hard problems, the possibility of failing publicly, or negative feedback all become threats when they’re linked to my identity.&quot;<p>I disagree with this [at least for me personally]. Being a good programmer is just straight up not something that&#x27;s part of my identity. There&#x27;s millions of people who are much, much better at it then me, and that&#x27;s totally fine.<p>The reason that it&#x27;s hard to work on hard problems is because they&#x27;re hard! Sometimes, programming can be a really difficult or a slog of an activity. It&#x27;s same with mastering any skill. Learning to play guitar, becoming an Olympic athlete, whatever. You can&#x27;t Zen Buddhism your way out of the fact that you&#x27;re going to spending years and years practicing until your fingers bleed, or until you&#x27;re completely exhausted, etc.

This is an interesting article because it made me consider how I think personally as a highly productive programmer but also a leader at my company. Even if I didn&#x27;t touch the code, I am personally responsible for it considering that I am the lead and have - or should have -reviewed it before it went out. If you go into the assumption that you are accountable no matter what, it isn&#x27;t really a big deal. If a subordinate f&#x27;d up, then you are still accountable because you should have caught it.<p>Thinking this way is very liberating because it means everything is your fault, but.. you are human and humans make mistakes.. so that means that this is a learning experience. If your mindset is that we are constantly learning, no mistake can ever really touch your ego.

A great book where the last quote in this post pulls from is Suzuki’s “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”. [1]<p>I often find the solution to many of my problems is to go back and practice from this mindset. I coincidentally went back and reread selections from this book a couple weeks ago, as I found my ego had been creeping into many facets of my life recently and I needed to go back and be reminded to practice with this mindset.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Zen_Mind,_Beginner&#x27;s_Mind" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Zen_Mind,_Beginner&#x27;s_Mind</a>

Wonderful writing. I get the same feeling about the ego thing. What makes me wonder is there are people who would like to write about ego and coding in great detail. I admire. Truly resonates with me.<p>from what I see others comments in HN. &quot;Points and Counterpoints&quot; Every article or idea doesn&#x27;t work for everyone as we are a complex cocktail of ideas and impressions. if some idea resonates with you, you have found your <i>type</i> of the idea. so enjoy it else don&#x27;t resist the idea wait for next one that might work or not. thank you for sharing in any case.

This is really good. Not much else to say here, other than ‘thank you’.

There is a predictable pattern to these types of posts and these types of life experiences.<p>You have a problem, you discover a potential solution and it seems to be working. You get excited and you try to make sense of it and you want to tell everyone because it is such a game changer! Then some time passes by, the emotions fade and you arrive at a new perspective - that your life hasn&#x27;t changed that much or if it has, now you have a new set of challenges and a new potential solution will come your way sooner or later.<p>It never ends, unless you at one point recognize that it never ends and cease <i>wanting</i> to be better and <i>wanting</i> to understand it all so much. It&#x27;s not that you purposely cease trying or wanting, it&#x27;s that you <i>relax</i> the wanting, because you know the problems will be there tomorrow and the day after, no matter how much you try.<p>That&#x27;s when &#x27;it&#x27;s the journey, not the destination&#x27; finally sinks in and life takes on a new quality :)<p>For some people, it happens when they are reminded of death and the inevitability of it all, for some when they&#x27;ve burned through their health enough that they can&#x27;t do it anymore, for others it just occurs to them one day - I can&#x27;t keep up with this bigger, better, faster, stronger culture and frankly, I don&#x27;t want to, either.

I can relate to the parallels between programming, and athletics. I like to consider myself an athlete, and if there is one thing I have learned about sports it&#x27;s that the process of falling from the top to the middle of the pack can happen in a week despite that it can take years to get from the middle of the pack to the top.<p>So when the author was talking about how being an expert is really just a matter of become a great student I was quickly reminded of my golf game. Where I often time find myself with the lowest handicap I have ever had without actually feeling like I am improving. I shave a stroke one day. Then another.. and another, and before I know it I am a 3 instead of a 10.<p>That being said, I wouldn&#x27;t say I have an ego problem in coding myself because tbh I have always felt like a bit of an imposter. I think my imposter syndrome has actually ended up being a good thing over time in my career as a programmer. It seems to have kept me grounded, and as the author suggested is a good thing, it seems to have kept me in the forever a student mentality.

The author has overfitted for his own psychology. There are a lot of assumptions in there. My brain doesn&#x27;t work like that at all.

&gt; Top students convincing everyone else to stop trying. Or, great engineers convincing the rest to stop trying.<p>This happens in a more literal sense as well. Since we compare ourselves to each other, it makes sense that more experienced engineers love feeling like they&#x27;re ahead and beyond newer engineers, and it bleeds into behavior.<p>For example, engineers love asking candidates obscure questions in interviews - as if not knowing a specific JVM perk makes the candidate less of an engineer.<p>Let&#x27;s also not forget the severe elitist attitude some engineers have when interacting with others. It&#x27;s almost like everyone else is trash. For all the work he&#x27;s done, which I admire, Torvalds was seriously toxic to interact with.<p>It all ties back to us wanting to compare ourselves to each other.

&gt; My ego creates a tight bond between my work and my identity. Linking my self worth to how well I do my job.<p>Same experience here, and probably for a lot of devs. It took a good 10 years or so to break out of this. If I couldn&#x27;t get something working that I expected to work, I silently took it out on myself. Must not be good&#x2F;smart enough. And so I&#x27;d beat my head against the wall. Once I started letting broken code or an unfixed bug wait until the next day and saw that the sky didn&#x27;t fall, and that I could eventually fix the issue, I started to trust myself more, and just let things be. Some days, everything works. Some days, nothing works. Your build fails and you spend hours updating some obscure library, and you don&#x27;t get feature X done that day. It&#x27;s really your decision whether or not you let this effect how you feel.

this is a great blog. i don&#x27;t think it would have really made sense or resonated with me if i hadn&#x27;t been in therapy the last year or so almost exclusively working on this. which is what i want to really endorse if you&#x27;re someone curious or in pain. there&#x27;s ways to work on it.

Did anyone else find the &quot;Relative Distance&quot; section seeming wrong. Not the harvard-vs-random school thing but the conclusion they draw, that you perform relative to your standing. How are students aware of their positions? Do some schools post rankings or something? When I was in school you&#x27;re standing&#x2F;grades were private and no one knew another students standing (aside from the obvious, people failing out and such).<p>If I was guessing at a cause, I&#x27;d put it more on the teachers&#x2F;school. That they have it in their mind that there should be a range of performance in the students and they enforce that idea. Eg. if everyone gets an A in their course they start making it harder until they get the distribution they expect.

There is a perspective shift that comes (usually but not always) with age I think.<p>When I was younger I got into computer programming, for the first ten years (1987-1997) I thought I was hot shit because I could do things with computers that no-one else I knew could even understand (with the exception of a family friend who was a programmer in aerospace) then I ran into other programmers on-line and realised that there where other much better programmers in the domains I was interested in (strangely I never got into programming games, I always liked utilities and &#x27;productive&#x27; stuff).<p>So I doubled down and resolved to be the best programmer I &#x27;knew&#x27; again except this time I knew hundreds or over the years thousands of programmers an impossible treadmill.<p>Sometime in my late 20&#x27;s&#x2F;early 30&#x27;s (so ~2007-2008) I realised that not only wasn&#x27;t I ever going to be the best programmer I knew, I really didn&#x27;t know much about programming in the general sense if you look at the whole field (no-one does really except the odd person) so I re-framed it, I was going to be a better programmer than the me of a year before and focus on the other skills I&#x27;d let languish over the years what I&#x27;d often derided as &#x27;soft&#x27; skills (I don&#x27;t think I was ever an arse-hole but I was the guy who&#x27;d sit in the corner muttering with the headphones blasting thrash metal).<p>In the end what I realised was that after all this, I like programming, I like providing value and when it comes to work the best thing I can get is feedback from a user whose life I&#x27;ve improved by making whatever I&#x27;ve touched that little bit better.<p>If I can do that then it was a good day.<p>The freedom from all this is I learnt to play again, if I&#x27;m interested in functional programming I&#x27;ll go poke at that for a bit, if I&#x27;m interested in algorithms I&#x27;ll go poke around over there - free from the the self-imposed need to compete I get to satisfy my own curiosity and nurture the devs on the team I run.<p>With 7 billion people on the planet it&#x27;s statistically unlikely you are ever going to be the best and even if you are it&#x27;s likely in only one dimension.<p>I noticed that the programmers I normally really admire are all older than me and seem to be excited&#x2F;happy about technology and wondered how they kept that enthusiasm for so long in an industry where so many seem miserable and I think I can hazard a guess now.<p>Oh and because the universe loves a punchline, I have a dev on my team now who is determined to prove himself the best programmer, never says a word and listens to thrash metal all day while muttering, he&#x27;s talented so I&#x27;m curious to see how he figures it out.

I found this quote from the article quite motivating:<p>&gt; “I cannot say this too strongly: Do not compare yourselves to others. Be true to who you are, and continue to learn with all your might.” ― Daisaku Ikeda, Discussions on Youth

Self-improvement piece once again. Why are people so obsessed with this? Imposter symdrom seems to be a thing I really dont get. It never really bothered me if i actually caused the bug when looking for the root cause- ok maybe sometimes you worry if you messed up just before the release but thats pretty much it. Maybe realizing that you dont need to be a great programmer to make a great piece of software helps.

I have my best coding sessions after I start the day with fifteen minutes to half an hour of mindfulness meditation. That calms my mind, makes me „less anxious“, lets me go into new directions without feeling the urge to walk away, procrastinate, do something else.

Incredible post! I&#x27;ve been struggling with anxiety, depression, and a lack of motivation at work for the past year or so, and slowly coagulating towards the feeling that I needed to focus on my work.<p>This article feels like it gives me the <i>how</i> - thank you.

This was an amazing post!<p>100% spot on that the external distractors are easier to manage than the internal ones. A buzzing phone, tempting social media websites, and loud rooms all tend to be relatively easy problems to fix. As for internal distractors, I feel like telling a personal story after reading this.. There are two internal distractors I&#x27;ve recently noticed myself struggling with:<p>1) A busy mind.<p>I often find my brain meandering on ideas or conversations completely unrelated to the work I&#x27;m trying to do. Daydreaming, imaginary arguments, and unnecessary tangents all tend to creep in (esp in the afternoon for some reason). I&#x27;m glad this post touched on Zen Buddhism and the beginner&#x27;s mind. At risk of proselytizing, I have to say the best way I&#x27;ve found to manage a busy mind is through meditation. Consciously setting aside 10-15 minutes everyday to practice letting go of thoughts has helped build a (tiny) mental muscle which I can sometimes use to bring my focus back on the things in front of me.<p>2) Alcohol.<p>This is a bit of an external distractor, but also an internal one. In college, I was able to stay up all night drinking and coding. No longer! I find it amazing how insanely less productive I am even after a single glass of beer. I now get tired shortly afterwards and have immense difficulty focusing. Perhaps as the article mentions, the alcohol is wrapping up my ego in the task at hand. I don&#x27;t have a drinking problem, but I now solve this by consciously deciding how to spend my next couple hours. &quot;Am I going to grab a drink and take an extended break (perhaps for the rest of the day)? Or am I going to grab a water&#x2F;tea and continue working?&quot; Gone are the days when I could reliably reach the Ballmer peak (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;323&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;323&#x2F;</a>).

So, one part of my brain is an adult another part is a child acting from beneath the consciousness.<p>Then most of these articles usually say the recipe is to have the adult very closely observe the child and hit it with a stick any time it wanders of the &quot;desired&quot; path.<p>No.<p>How do you expect it to work between a real parent and a real child? I think it would fail miserably and annoy both sides. I&#x27;d suggest coming up with some nasty parental tricks instead. Also adjust them after some time, because they <i>do</i> tend to stop working.

There is an interesting parallel drawn by a famous theologian: sin is self curved in on itself.

&gt;It’s clear to me now that it&#x27;s not about what I know, but rather how I think that&#x27;s different on these days.<p>yup

I think software ecosystems are currently infested by corporate interests. I feel kinda funny for saying this. It sounds like some kinds of left-wing politics. But software has become increasingly consolidated. There&#x27;re 5-10 companies in the US that drive most of its development. They even picked up the most popular open source projects. When you&#x27;re part of an ecosystem, your objective is to work the system. Making software has lower priority.<p>It&#x27;s extremely hard to make money being an independent software developer. There&#x27;s a lot of noise and money in the market. It&#x27;s hard to compete with marketing from big companies. You have to work for a corporation or a startup with funding. You have to be part of an ecosystem. When you are accepted to a program like YC, you win an entry to an ecosystem.<p>Can you be a software artisan nowadays? Can a small team develop and sell software without having an ecosystem behind it? I&#x27;ve seen some examples of this, like Ruby on Rails, 37signals. But they are rare exceptions.<p>I&#x27;m currently working on an open source project. Let&#x27;s see how long I can be independent for. Check out my project :)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;vidalab&#x2F;vida" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;vidalab&#x2F;vida</a>

It might seem like a tangent by I would recommend studying (self-)hypnosis.

Glad to see Jose writing again! Great post as always from them.