donald-knuth-syndrome
category: coined-term
The "Donald Knuth Syndrome" is the following behaviour pattern:
- You are working on a side project
Project_A
. - You reached to the conclusion that you need the tool
Tool_A
for this. - You try to learn
Tool_A
but "they are not as good as you've thought". - You decide to make a new tool to replace
Tool_A
. - "Making this new tool" is now a new side project
Project_B
. - You decided that you need
Tool_B
, thenTool_B
is also not good enough which makes you create a new side project which leads to more side project ad infinitum.
It's named after Donald E. Knuth because he infamously spent years working on TeX and Metafont just for typesetting the computer book series he was working on.