Doing the same thing over and over

There's this quote that is commonly attributed to Albert Einstein (though it's uncertain whether he really said it or not):

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I first came across it a long time ago, when I was much less discerning. After reading it, I envisioned someone going crazy by repeating the same experiment again and again and expecting a different outcome. Basically, I just came up with imagery to illustrate the point of the quote.

More recently, I came across a Mastodon post with a different perspective:

I forgot who originally said this but doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of practicing.

I was stunned (for a second)! I had never thought about it that way and indeed it is very true! As someone who never formally practised anything, this perspective had never occurred to me!

Besides the point that there's usually different points of view to everything, the alternate perspective really resonated with me because practising and good habits is something that I only learned to appreciate much later in life than I would like to admit.

One day several years ago, I came across a book series called Learn "Programming Language" The Hard Way and read the following passage (that seems to be included in the introduction of every book in that series):

While you are studying programming, I'm studying how to play guitar. I practice it every day for at least two hours a day. I play scales, chords, and arpeggios for an hour and then learn music theory, ear training, songs, and anything else I can. Some days I study guitar and music for eight hours because I feel like it and it's fun. To me repetitive practice is natural and just how to learn something. I know that to get good at anything you have to practice every day, even if I suck that day (which is often) or it's difficult. Keep trying, and eventually it'll be easier and fun.

Between the time that I wrote Learn Python The Hard Way and Learn Ruby The Hard Way I discovered drawing and painting. I fell in love with making visual art at the age of 39 and have been spending every day studying it in much the same way that I studied guitar, music, and programming. I collected books of instructional material, did what the books said, painted every day, and focused on enjoying the process of learning. I am by no means an "artist," or even that good, but I can now say that I can draw and paint. The same method I'm teaching you in this book applied to my adventures in art. If you break the problem down into small exercises and lessons, and do them every day, you can learn to do almost anything. If you focus on slowly improving and enjoying the learning process, then you will benefit no matter how good you are at it.

As you study this book, and continue with programming, remember that anything worth doing is difficult at first. Maybe you are the kind of person who is afraid of failure, so you give up at the first sign of difficulty. Maybe you never learned self-discipline, so you can't do anything that's "boring." Maybe you were told that you are "gifted," so you never attempt anything that might make you seem stupid or not a prodigy. Maybe you are competitive and unfairly compare yourself to someone like me who's been programming for more than 20 years.

Whatever your reason for wanting to quit, keep at it. Force yourself. If you run into a Study Drill you can't do, or a lesson you just do not understand, then skip it and come back to it later. Just keep going because with programming there's this very odd thing that happens. At first, you will not understand anything. It'll be weird, just like with learning any human language. You will struggle with words and not know what symbols are what, and it'll all be very confusing. Then one day BANG---your brain will snap and you will suddenly "get it." If you keep doing the exercises and keep trying to understand them, you will get it. You might not be a master coder, but you will at least understand how programming works.

If you give up, you won't ever reach this point. You will hit the first confusing thing (which is everything at first) and then stop. If you keep trying, keep typing it in, keep trying to understand it and reading about it, you will eventually get it. If you go through this whole book, and you still do not understand how to code, at least you gave it a shot. You can say you tried your best and a little more, and it didn't work out, but at least you tried. You can be proud of that.

There wasn't a more perfect time to use the "I feel exposed" statement/meme.

I'll end the post with some "mantras" I keep telling myself:

• Little by little, a little becomes a lot.
• Focus on the process, not the results.
• Embrace the boredom of consistency.

I feel like LLMs are “the proverbial hare” in The Tortoise and the Hare fable. Use LLMs by all means to aid you in your studies/work but only through consistent practice and hard work, will you really become competent.