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Posted by prakhar897 1/27/2026

Doing the thing is doing the thing(www.softwaredesign.ing)
585 points | 187 commentspage 6
PrettiGoodDead 1/27/2026|
[flagged]
mojuba 1/27/2026|
> Doing it badly is doing the thing.

No it's not. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) doing it badly means maybe it's not your thing.

I used to have a neighbour who liked to play the piano and sing. He was doing it consistently badly and he didn't have anyone to tell him that he should probably stop trying.

redmattred 1/27/2026||
People sometimes do things because they enjoy doing them, even if they aren’t particularly good at them.
mojuba 1/27/2026||
I have two problems with that. One is, you can do what you like quietly and without disturbing anyone around you. Second is the Dunning Kruger effect: witnessing it first hand is never fun.
redmattred 1/28/2026||
And both of those problems are yours, not your neighbor’s.

To your neighbor, doing it badly is still doing the thing.

Nevermark 1/28/2026|||
Who are you, to define what "the thing" is, for someone else?

Doing the thing isn't about judging other people. That doesn't contribute to your thing.

If someone is bothering you, making it hard to do your thing, then your thing involves talking to them about your problem. Without judging what they are doing.

funkmasterzeb 1/27/2026|||
Well you are pretty bad at comments. Hang up the keyboard bud
jdefr89 1/28/2026|||
Oh.. So you start doing something new and you're top 10% without practicing or being bad at it first? I'd love to test that to see if it's the case... Your logic is "You're not the best ever to do something so you are not doing it" means you have probably never done a single thing your entire life. Maybe you should just stop.
scandox 1/27/2026|||
Yeah the dude should have stopped doing what he liked
jdefr89 1/28/2026||
All because this dude is the ultimate judge for all that is good and worth doing somehow..
8note 1/27/2026|||
no, theres a different thing here, which is that practice needs yo be deliberate.

the answer isnt to stop practicing, its to practice the right thing and not practice doing it wrong.

theyre probably still better off playing badly and enjoying it, vs just staring at an unplayed piano though

ashtonshears 1/27/2026|||
Maybe people did tell him he sucked, but he was having fun
pyrolistical 1/27/2026||
Just let people be.