Konubinix' opinionated web of thoughts

Yak Shaving Is Ok, as Long as the Path Is Worthwhile

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yak shaving is ok, as long as the path is worthwhile

I needed to discuss with some friends on slack, so

  • I opened a multi user group in slack
  • then I tried to access it in emacs
  • I could not, then I tried to understand what is going on using my clk slack command
  • it did not work, then I debugged it
  • I could not, because of a bug in clk, that I fixed
  • then it did not work, because of a change of API in slack
  • then I realized I was shaving a yak and I wondered if I needed to stop
  • then I realized it was ok, because all the steps of the path were making my tooling even better, fixing but etc
  • then I wanted to write a note about that
  • …

I think shaving a yak, in that case, is ok, provided you have a trusted system that shows you what you are not doing so that you can feel confident not doing what you are not doing. If not, you can put it in your in basket.