> Yes, I had failed to see the proper solution… It actually existed back then, I simply didn't know about it, no one told me about it, and I wasn't smart enough to question myself once I started going down a certain path.
And there’s your problem right there: Assuming that nobody has ever tried to solve this problem before so not bothering to look around at existing solutions.
This is a failure of lack of context, in two ways:
1. The author lacked knowledge about the various possible solutions and the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
2. The author lacked knowledge of the context into which the solution would be applied, e.g. a sophisticated solution might not make sense for an unsophisticated team to maintain.
Found solutions also tend to be super clever. Because they're packaged in a generalized library or white-paper, where the author doesn't have to worry about implementation details.
Clever works great outside of your actual business code.
And there’s your problem right there: Assuming that nobody has ever tried to solve this problem before so not bothering to look around at existing solutions.
This is a failure of lack of context, in two ways:
1. The author lacked knowledge about the various possible solutions and the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
2. The author lacked knowledge of the context into which the solution would be applied, e.g. a sophisticated solution might not make sense for an unsophisticated team to maintain.