“See, in general, as systems designers, you’re forced with necessity to make decisions about how you’re going to do things, and in general, the way you’d like to retain flexibility is to never make up your mind about anything until you’re forced to do it. The problem is, there’s a very, very narrow line between deferring decisions and outright procrastination. So you’d like to make progress, but also at the same time, never be bound by the consequences of your decisions.”

Source: Lecture on Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrFkf-T-6Co

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Hal Abelson11

computer scientist 1947

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