Hacker News Reader

Comment by danieltillett | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone met an actual perfectionist (i.e. someone who produces near perfect work)? All the "perfectionists" I have met are either delusional (i.e. their output is far from perfect), or who are just slow and who use it as an excuse for their lack of productivity.

View on HN

Perfectionists don't produce perfect work. As described in article, they obess with details, lists, loose sight of big picture and then can't finish work (half of task being perfected other still untouched ) or finish it after very long time.

I met some people who did very little mistakes. In anything non trivial there tend to be differences of opinion about what is perfect solution.

I understand what the clinical definition of a perfectionist is - I was more interested to know if anyone had met an actual perfectionist.

The people I have met who have produced the best solutions are the least like the clinical definition of a perfectionist - they are efficient, see the big picture, and pump out the best (or near best) answer first time.

I guess, in their eyes, it doesn't have to be universally near-perfect. But near-perfect in a context that... given their limits of knowledge, skill, and the time span, this is the best they could have done.

No, but I've met people who strive for perfection and know when to let go.

That person is not a perfectionist :)

There was a huge spike in pseudo-perfectionists after Steve Jobs died, people seemed to think that if they are picky enough they will be perceived as geniuses.

Source?

What's it with all the idiots replying "Source?" to every I-just-pulled-this-out-of-my-ass-but-I-like-sounding-authoritative comment on the internet?

Please stop. Thanks.

When someone makes a statement that sounds potentially plausible-and-interesting but could also be pulled-out-of-ass then asking for some evidence isn't unreasonable.

What's with all the clowns replying "please stop" to unsubstantive comments. Everyone thinks they're a "dan-g" nowadays.

Surely you mean dang? He's not that blunt, thank goodness. If you're looking for a faux-moderator, there's a guy around going by gzrm or something like that.

I didn't want to ambiguate with dang as in "damn!" which is sometimes exclaimed on HN.

dang is polite, he does say "please stop" sometimes which is fair enough.

You can use me as a source if you want to include it in an academic paper.

Then you could cite the paper. But my reference checker robot will throw a stack overflow exception.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com