[HN Gopher] Yak Shaving
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       Yak Shaving
        
       Author : smitty1e
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2022-01-10 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (irreal.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (irreal.org)
        
       | omarhaneef wrote:
       | I think the "bad" yak shaving is one where you never get any task
       | done. If you actually create TeK, and metafont and so forth, then
       | that isn't the "bad" sort.
       | 
       | Whether it actually qualifies as Yak Shaving is an expedition I
       | will not go on, but I think you have to go back to the original
       | source (the xkcd comic), and then interpret the "point" of it and
       | so forth. That might be a worthy detour, and you can tell us at
       | the end if it counts as a yak shave.
        
       | wombatmobile wrote:
       | Is there any such thing as "procrastinating"?
       | 
       | Luke: Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally
       | different.
       | 
       | Yoda: No. No different. Only different in your mind. You must
       | unlearn what you have learned.
       | 
       | Luke: All right, I'll give it a try.
       | 
       | Yoda: No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.
        
       | mml wrote:
       | I find this blog opprobrious
        
       | marcosdumay wrote:
       | Yak shaving is only procrastinating if it's optional. Any
       | interesting thing you create will need a huge set of errands into
       | unrelated tasks. If you refuse to do the errands, you'll never do
       | anything interesting.
        
         | ballenf wrote:
         | But TEX was a rather weak prerequisite to writing TAOCP. It
         | will undoubtedly be re-typeset in the future for either a new
         | device or a new generation. And the font surely an even weaker
         | prerequisite. (But both are totally Knuth's prerogative and I
         | hope no one over chastises him over either decision.)
         | 
         | If the series isn't finished because of TEX, I think we'll feel
         | like it was a bad tradeoff. (But I could see others feeling
         | like TEX is is more valuable than volume 11 or whatever of
         | TAOCP).
        
         | oceanghost wrote:
         | You're correct. This guy seems to have misunderstood the
         | concept of Yak Shaving entirely.
        
       | bellyfullofbac wrote:
       | Seems like just a summary of the mentioned blog post, the author
       | probably saw the same HN post we did:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29861678
        
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       (page generated 2022-01-10 23:01 UTC)