Everyone is missing out on the good shit in life focusing only on the forest but not the fine details, the forest only exists because of millions of small beautiful details.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m on the spectrum but I hope it isn’t, I wish everyone could experience the same joy I get from all the small things.
That saying really bothers me too, but mainly because I’m always hearing it. For example, programming is often really difficult for me because I have a hard time thinking about the big picture, and I struggle to break the task down into parts that work together. I often get too hung up on small details.
What helps me is to view a program purely as a pipeline of data transformations. You have an input shape that enters the pipeline, and an output shape that is your result. This allows me to immediately write the types I need for the main function, and then I can split off smaller chunks of logic by only focusing on what data I can provide and what result I expect.
In general, it’s always good to start with the function signature. Makes it much harder to get lost in the weeds, because you can focus on the happy path and leave details for later (with appropriate comments, to remind yourself of what you still need to do).