This is the big difference between studying and working.<p>When you're a student you generally have small, closed ended problems with a solution that someone has found before you.<p>When you're working you're generally the first person to solve a given problem, and it's never completely solved and it's never completely understood. You may have to dive down to a level of abstraction that you don't normally operate in, like machine code. Or up, eg to the business strategy.<p>The feeling of discomfort comes from the cave diving, you don't know what's around the corner. What does tend to happen is you learn a set of tools that are generally applicable, with a bit of customization for each time you see the same problem.
"Motivating Personal Growth by Seeking Discomfort"<p>by Kaitlin Woolley, Cornell University ; Ayelet Fishbach, University of Chicago<p>PDF: <a href="https://kaitlinwoolleycom.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/woolleyfishbachpsycsci.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://kaitlinwoolleycom.files.wordpress.com/2021/08/woolle...</a><p><i>"Abstract:
Achieving personal growth often requires experiencing discomfort. What if instead of tolerating discomfort (e.g., feeling awkward or uncomfortable), people actively sought it out? Because discomfort is usually experienced immediately and is easy to detect, we suggest seeking discomfort as a signal of growth can increase motivation. Five experiments (N = 2,163) tested this prediction across various areas of personal growth: taking improvisation classes to increase self-confidence, engaging in expressive writing to process difficult emotions, becoming informed about the COVID-19 health crisis, opening oneself to opposing political viewpoints, and learning about gun violence. Across these areas of personal development, seeking discomfort as a signal of self-growth motivated engagement and increased perceived goal achievement relative to standard instructions. Consistent with our theorizing, these effects occurred only in areas of personal growth that cause immediate discomfort."</i><p>Keywords: motivation, self-control, self-growth goals, negative experience
Personally I like the idea of iterative development.<p>That means, I will code knowing beforehand my first version will be crap. Because no matter how much thought I put into it, there's always a myriad of variables that get overlooked in a first version.<p>And once I done it, I get to know most of those variables.<p>But to avoid programming an amorphous blob of bad code, I take software architecture very seriously. If I split controllers, services, repositories properly, then I know I will be sitting on tip of a solid base without worrying about not writing a perfect first version.
I would go a step further and say that sometimes that moment of uncertainty is useful and needs cultivating as it is where you have most freedom to define solutions. Once you step away from uncertainty your path is one of ever decreasing options, which is good if you're on the right path but uncertainty is when you get to choose a direction.
Replace “software development” with “life”.<p>People usually crave security and certainty, and go to great lengths to attain it.<p>The thing is, while there are certainly variables in life one can control, things you know you know, or know you don’t know, there are also those things beyond your information horizon, beyond your control.<p>My takeaway was that there’s no real certainty in anything, and you can either spend your life trying to attain perfect certainty and never succeed, or revel in the uncertainty, the adventure, the unknown and maybe unknowable. I gave up long ago knowing everything I could know about software development, as the pool of knowledge is immense - and that in and of itself is a joy, to know that I can keep at it, at practically any discipline, software or otherwise, and <i>never stop learning and experiencing novelty</i>.
I feel like this when I need to think up a new project idea. What if this time I won't come up with anything? I wonder if that agony is an important part of the process. Maybe without it your subconscious wouldn't assign enough resources to solve the problem. I hope not.
Similar to the footnote, a lot of my most interesting ideas for my graduate research, and life in general, have come to me during runs. I got an Apple Watch with drafts for the express purpose of dictating these thoughts before they evaporate.
> Have you felt that feeling? That moment of uncertainty, where you don’t know what the solution will look like.<p>You... should feel that all day, every day (as a programmer anyway). If you don't, you're doing something wrong.