The Yin and Yang of Programming
There’s two types of programming, and one is far more important.
Yang
In Chinese Philosophy, Yang roughly refers to direct action. Examples:
To implement a feature, write code
To debug, read the code and think really hard
To recruit, message people and take calls.
Higher level yang is more yang.
More features? Write more code.
More recruiting? Message more people.
Yang is very easy to do and it’s easy to add more yang. If one person can message 10 people a day and you want 50 messages/day, hire 5 people. This analogy works really well with machines, but also kind of with people.
Yin
In Chinese Philosophy, Yin roughly refers to indirect action. Examples:
To implement a feature, find a way to re-use existing featues to get the desired behavior.
To debug, get the computer to log state so you don’t have to think so hard
To recruit, get a celebrity endorsement (ex. raise a series A with some top VC)
Higher level …