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Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko —  — Thoughts — best, choice, comparison, quest

Are you content with good or with best?

There is saying “Good is enemy of best”.
There is saying “Best is enemy of good”.

So is it good or best worth pursuing?

Good

Good solutions are tried and true. It’s probably your favorite piece of software. Something that stayed with you long enough to see few OS updates. It’s no longer noticeable - habit and useful one at that.

Good just works . It won’t wow your friends or make your PC twice faster. It’s there to fulfill a task. And it does that, well, good.

Best

Best on other hand is not something easily achievable. It’s a quest for best solution. It’s not settling for good and keeping looking no matter the cost. Best has beta suffix and rough edges. But it is capable of making you gape.

Best makes a show . It’s faster, more functional and may do thing or two you didn’t know as possible. Problem is - it’s not easy to find.

Don’t confuse best with good

Best is rarely something you see on first page of Google. Success is often achieved by catering to the masses, brilliance is something found on personal quest. It’s a long way of searching, analyzing, comparing… And at some point - making .

Don’t confuse novelty with best

That charm of new version. Seeing first digit change and proud developer blogging about two hundreds bugs hunted down and slaughtered. Are two hundred bugs really worth excitement?

Best demands progress but not every progress moves in a direction of best. It’s easy to mistake something growing for something growing to be awesome. Don’t make that mistake of drowning in whirlpool of changes.

When do you stop looking?

So what worth you put on best? Always looking, always impatient, always sorting tons of dust to see that tiny spark of promise and potential. It may require a pause to suddenly realize that your good became best for you a long time ago. It may require a new journey to understand how limited your good became.

If you are moving or standing either - sometimes you should do opposite for a change.

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10 Comments

  • shontou #

    Very thought provoking article. Time in life is short.So always choose the best. NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY — by Robert Frost Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

  • Rarst #

    @shontou >Time in life is short.So always choose the best. Time in life is short. So how long can we afford to spend looking for something that may be not there at all? :) Welcome to blog and thanks for commenting.

  • keithmaxx #

    This post was just awesome in as much as it felt somewhat profound. I think it's up to people and to specific occasions whether "just good" or "only the best" is what's right.

  • Rarst #

    @keithmaxx Yeah, it's important to keep deciding between good and best. When people fix their choice to either, turn it into system - that's when they cripple their productivity.

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