Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c860IR // #c860Synthesis

Do the crude version first, the one that just works, then improve it once you can see the real bottleneck. Optimizing before you have a working baseline means you are polishing a guess.

— In our words · Source: Algorithms Every Programmer Should Know (Aniket Wattamwar)

[Use when]

You are stuck planning the perfect approach, or someone wants to optimize a process that does not work yet.

[Why it matters]

Start with the dumb, obvious solution, then refine it; optimizing too early is a trap.

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