A central theme in Lost is the modern personification of the conflict between Faith and Reason. I find this duality to be personified on a day to day basis through my experiences with modern technology and computer science.
The preparation for the upcoming first day at the new job has thus far been an attempt to balance the theoretical with the practical. Reading books such as Code Complete and The Mythical Man Month represent the theory side, while the practical side is a mishmash of Rails hacking and beginner .net, VB and C# tutorials. Should I have faith in my abilities to pickup new technologies and learn as much practical theory as possible, or should reason prevail and should I focus more on learning the physical construction tools personified by languages and IDE's. Of course in practice there is no picking and choosing because practicality must be combined with theory in order to be a complete programmer. So then is there also a balance to be found between faith and reason? Is there a difference??? Or is science just a higher form of religion in who's laws and postulates we steadfastly believe until they are overturned.
Again everything streams toward balance, like sliding down the strings held by some gigantic blindfolded woman of justice onto her scales. I must be empowered to balance myself.
"Trying to find a balance, trying to build a balance." - Slug
2 comments:
Code Complete is an awesome book. For me tho I thought it was more of a practical guide. I use lots in that book everyday.
There is a balance but you must decide where that balance is. You are empowered to do so. In Mark 12:17 of the NIV translation of the Bible, Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." That advice has helped me out of a few jams in various work situations when I screwed up my priorities by thinking of me instead of the bigger picture.
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