Theoretical vs Practical Knowledge

Thu Dec 13 10:42:36 PST 2001

> My old 4-step mantra:
> 
>   Can you recognise and determine that you have a problem?
> 
>   Can you define the problem when you find it?
> 
>   Can you make the problem go away and not come back without
>   creating new/other/more problems?
> 
>   Can you do that reliably?
> 
> Or paraphrased:
> 
>   Awareness
>   Knowledge
>   Effectiveness
>   Certainty

Funny, I find more of the drastic failures happen when someone deals 
poorly with Uncertainty:

    How do you try to tell if you're in over your head?

    What do you do to prevent yourself from making things worse?

Which sounds to me like an expansion on your point 3, but from the "during"
rather than the "debriefing" point of view.

I find that documenting my work helps a lot, even if it's just a cheap
README - the me at noon is not the same me as the one who hasn't had coffee
yet, or the one one a good coding roll at 10 pm or so, or the one trying
to get something un-broken in the wee hours before the madding crowd returns
at 7:30 to 8 am.  YMMV but even wimpy docs are often better than none.

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
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