[throw149102]

I realize this is a silly criticism, but it's strange that the author would write about how it's valuable to make a lot of stuff but then to only write 11 sentences about the topic. It seems like it would be much better way to demonstrate the point if the author wrote 100 pages about producing more work/art/code, without any rhyme or reason or editing. After all, the thesis is "Quantity leads to quality", why not just do that?

Of course, I appreciate concise writing and if it were 100 unedited rambling pages it would never be posted on HN or read by anyone. But admitting that seems to be antithetical to the entire point of the blogpost. It just seems like the article doesn't even believe in the idea. It also feels like there wasn't a whole lot of thought put into the post, and I guess that's evidenced by the fact that the art class anecdote doesn't have a source.

The blogpost also ignores all of the issues related to being prolific. Imagine a would-be-weightlifter who has awful form, but does a ton of reps. Not only is their exercise near worthless, it could be potentially dangerous. Or in music, where you could accidentally continually practice a bad habit instead of taking the time to find a mentor and learn how to practice correctly. In software, you could potentially produce something that is buggy and insecure by default. If the code were then included as a dependency in larger projects it could be a cause for a security disaster. I think there's more to high-quality work/practice than just doing it more often, even if that ends up being the most important part of getting good at something.

[ck425]

There's a big difference between quantity in each completed piece of work and quantity of pieces of completed work. I think his theory favours the latter by far. Instead of increase quantity by writing bigger articles, write lots of articles.

I do agree with your latter points about bad practise. I think this works best for forms of output where bad work has relatively little downside for the individual. It's harder to get bad habits that dampen your growth in things like writing, art etc and so this system works great for those types of activity. Maybe a good way to think about it is that you need a base level of skill to then improve. In writing most folk will have the base skills from school (spelling, grammar etc), whereas in software you first need to learn the basics (syntax, high level incepts like classes and functions, debugging etc) and then this theory will work for you.

[GavinMcG]

When you realize it's silly, take another minute to think about why it's silly.

The author's point is about developing a skill, not about creating a specific piece of work.

Even if it were about creating a specific item, there may be 100 pages that the author wrote but didn't publish. The point wasn't to share all of one's work, but to do a substantial amount of work and also to share work that can garner good feedback.

Being prolific isn't the same thing as doing a lot of repetitions. "Prolific" refers to a quantity of creative works. The weightlifting and musician examples aren't apt, any more than saying "don't be a prolific author because there's a high risk you'll slouch in your computer chair when you're doing all that writing." Ergonomics are orthogonal to exercising one's creativity.

[jlangemeier]

As one of my martial arts sensai said:

"Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect."

But we're probably splitting hairs that a reasonable person would understand don't need splitting by looking at the whole piece, which can be boiled down to: "Make lots and seek feedback more."

[chrisweekly]

Bruce Lee reputedly said something like, "I don't fear the one who's practiced 10,000 kicks, I fear the one who's practiced one kick 10,000 times."

[quickthrower2]

I think the subtle point is as long as it’s safe, practicing a lot will make you better than being a beginner trying to be an expert.

In the blog analogy he could write 100k words and throw them away. They were for getting good. Then write 200 words for a blog post that gets published. Don’t publish the first 100k.

Or poker for example, play 100k hands at tiny stakes before moving up to higher stakes.

The weightlifter example is a good point. Some disciplines need education in addition to just practicing.

[jkingsbery]

Maybe the author, rather than writing 1 good article describing it, is planning on writing several articles on the same topic in the hopes of getting better at writing about it over time?

[iamgopal]

Well that page landed on hn first page. thats something. also We do not know how many edit author did for that page to be like that.

[suprfnk]

Maybe the author made 100 articles or wrote 500 sentences, and then posted his highest quality work on the internet.