Andrew Quinn on Reinventing Wheels and Tooling Evolution
One could argue that in the first quarter-century of his life as a programmer, Andrew Quinn was always intrigued by coding but felt guilty about not knowing if the tool he was currently building had already been vastly improved upon by someone else 30 or 40 years ago. For instance, instead of crafting a TSV-aware search and replace utility, he might have discovered awk, which could solve an entire class of problems more efficiently in one go.
This is a trap, Quinn suggests. Instead of reinventing hundreds or thousands of wheels, you need to focus on just a few key areas where innovation can lead you closer to the frontier of knowledge and technology. Each wheel you invent and each question you ask along this journey will propel you faster towards mastering true expertise than merely studying in isolation.
— Andrew Quinn
Footnote on Replacing a 3 GB SQLite database with a 10 MB FST binary
Key Takeaways
- Focus on key areas for innovation rather than reinventing everything.
- Each new tool or concept you master propels you closer to the frontier of knowledge and technology.
- Reinvention is more effective at accelerating your understanding towards true expertise than idle study alone.
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