Comment by crispyambulance

  > In part of a previous post, I described how long a tiny part of that process took and multiple people objected to that being impossibly fast in internet comments.

I remember that one. I think it was when he said he wrote up something ad-hoc to query one hundred thousand servers for some kind of performance profiling. It struck me as braggadocio. Partly, I guess, because I've _never_ worked in a place that had it's shit together to such an extent where something like that is even possible. And, it really was just too fast to be believable given the context I could imagine.

BUT there was something missing in the back-story and it's apparent in this latest post from danluu. This...

  > I find this a bit funny since I'm not a naturally quick programmer. Learning to program was a real struggle for me and I was pretty slow at it for a long time (and I still am in aspects that I haven't practiced). My "one weird trick" is that I've explicitly worked on speeding up things that I do frequently and most people have not.

He's had the foresight and latitude to be able to PRACTICE. Practice always means trying stuff out, failing, and trying it again and again. Kudos to danluu for putting himself through that and not just going on autopilot down the easy path.

Crucially IMHO, getting to danluu-speed ALSO means enjoying the grace of being able to ask questions and discuss stuff with skilled folks that is completely outside of what's on some project manager's gnatt chart. That's not usually possible in a nose-to-the-grindstone workplace unless you find the right teammates and a protective, encouraging, and tolerant manager.