I wrote about failing deliberately in inverse educated guess. The serendipity of failing first and fixing it after helps to validate the causality between actions and their results - it helps to learn.
Breaking the code for the sake of bug-hunting featured in that post is a specific case exemplifying a generic pattern; Welcome fails and mistakes: Failcome! I don’t think that slogan is going to stick with the others of the likes of DRY, YAGNI, or ROFLMAO.
One could argue that I am describing the “fail fast” with the commonality being evaluation via trial-and-error. “Fail fast”, “fail often” or “fail cheap” is often related to business strategy i.e. longer arching scopes, when failing deliberately reminds to break out of the box of presumptions and expectations when stuck in order to improve our mental model; It’s like a scandinavian flick in which you steer to the opposite side momentarily to drive faster into the corners with improved control.
An ego clinged to a specific outcome kills motivation [1]; Once the outcome seems less than expected, that monkey-brain starts avoiding the task and makes finishing it a steepening uphill battle. It helps to take a step back and view the task as a part of a holistic composition: take into account all the other things we are and do - especially if we feel cornered.
Focus is a brittle thing in a developer’s work-life environment and embracing the mistakes frames the task at hand appropriately within a longer arching and complete picture. Consider for example woodworking, which is about fixes and not about not making mistakes. I know nothing about woodworking - but a youtuber said that once, and it resonated with me about embracing mistakes. Contrary to centuries old lumber, code is relatively cheap. Still, focus and clearness of mind is harder to come by without effort and thus should be regarded as a scarce resource.
- Social judgment theory, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_judgment_theory&oldid=1296754129#Ego_involvement [Accessed: Jun. 28, 2025].