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Re:Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering? by hinkley on Thursday January 07, 2021 @02:07AM (#25668112)
I once was trying to design a validation framework. I thought it should work this way. The other lead thought it should work that way. So I proposed we write some sample code for these APIs and show it to the team. TDD with pseudocode before any of us knew what TDD was.

Only, I didn’t like having two to chose from. Something told me three would be better. So we paired, I wrote mine, then hers, then just made another one up on the spot. Once we agreed they were complete and implementable, I shopped them to the team.

About 2/3rds preferred the made up one. Including me. So that’s what I implemented.

Re:Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering? by brazzy on Thursday January 07, 2021 @03:45AM (#25668763)
Great story! Not a huge surprise when you think about it - you made up the the third design just after thinking through the other two in detail.