I think we have different understandings of perfectionism. I don’t think perfectionism means you do something perfectly. Most of the time I think it’s not being able to trade good enough for best. Often this leads to unfinished work. Perfectionism by no means only comes into play after you have something shippable - you’d likely never get that far.
Development of anything substantial is an incremental process where parts must exist in an unfinished imperfect state for a time. Managing those priorities and letting parts exist as scaffolding and/or barely working stand-ins is a core competency of our field. e.g. You're not a perfectionist when you used expensive artist-produced "perfect" stand-in art instead of programmer art, you're just incompetent and wasting resources on stuff that won't likely make it into the shipped product.
I've seen many "perfectionists" hide behind this moniker when infact they're just incompetent when it comes to prioritizing what to do, how much to do it, and in what order.
You're not a perfectionist when you spent all your time making a "perfect" ECS at the expense of actually completing a playable game, when the latter was your actual goal. You're just a failure/incompetent. But "perfectionist" certainly sounds better for the ego.
Development of anything substantial is an incremental process where parts must exist in an unfinished imperfect state for a time.
Yes, of course. That's why not being able to leave something messy/unfinished/bad is crippling.
I've seen many "perfectionists" hide behind this moniker when infact they're just incompetent when it comes to prioritizing what to do, how much to do it, and in what order.
As you've identified, this thing they're calling perfectionism isn't an asset. I get the sense that you think being a perfectionist is supposed to be a good thing. It's not. It's a defect.
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I think we have different understandings of perfectionism. I don’t think perfectionism means you do something perfectly. Most of the time I think it’s not being able to trade good enough for best. Often this leads to unfinished work. Perfectionism by no means only comes into play after you have something shippable - you’d likely never get that far.
Development of anything substantial is an incremental process where parts must exist in an unfinished imperfect state for a time. Managing those priorities and letting parts exist as scaffolding and/or barely working stand-ins is a core competency of our field. e.g. You're not a perfectionist when you used expensive artist-produced "perfect" stand-in art instead of programmer art, you're just incompetent and wasting resources on stuff that won't likely make it into the shipped product.
I've seen many "perfectionists" hide behind this moniker when infact they're just incompetent when it comes to prioritizing what to do, how much to do it, and in what order.
You're not a perfectionist when you spent all your time making a "perfect" ECS at the expense of actually completing a playable game, when the latter was your actual goal. You're just a failure/incompetent. But "perfectionist" certainly sounds better for the ego.
Yes, of course. That's why not being able to leave something messy/unfinished/bad is crippling.
As you've identified, this thing they're calling perfectionism isn't an asset. I get the sense that you think being a perfectionist is supposed to be a good thing. It's not. It's a defect.