Oliver Steele

I like to travel in style. Two different styles, in fact: exploratory, and direct.

When I’m late to an appointment, I take the most direct, familiar, route I know. I don’t try any tricks – roads that vaguely ring a bell, or look like they might connect – I stay with what I’ve known.

But when I’ve time to spare, I get lost. Given a choice between a 15 minute route I know, and one that might take twice as long, I’ll take the road less traveled (by me). I’m paying for knowledge, with time.

I discover a lot of good routes this way – not always to the place I was going at the time, but often to somewhere I want to go later, when I’m in a hurry and wouldn’t have time to look for them. And, when I am in a hurry and I do get lost – because I’m coming from or going somewhere unfamiliar, or have to detour – I’m more likely to come across a place I recognize, and place myself back onto my mental map.

1. Exploration. I can sample platforms and sample stretch languages without sinking my stakeholders if I fail. Also, it’s easier to try something radical in a small, green field project than in a big one.

2. Altitude training (link TBD). I can make myself jump through hoops that I wouldn’t feel ethical asking someone to pay me to jump through. I did this recently with “Sequentially”:/sources/javascript/sequentially; the next time I needed to simulate concurrent processes in a more serious context, it was a lot easier.

Update: (1) There’s a discussion (at the moment) on reddit. (2) Thanks to FusionGyro for suggesting the name change to “revising”.