“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
One time I had an idea for something I wanted to find out and I quickly dove into figuring out how I could do it in Python, because it was new to me and therefore flashy. After a couple of hours, I finished the task and got my results – and realized that I could have gotten the same results in a few minutes with Excel. I had fallen into the temptation of starting with the tool rather than starting with the problem and determining which tool is best to solve it.
My mistake was that I didn’t think carefully about the end result I was seeking – if I had, I would have realized there was a better way to get there. Now, sometimes there is a case for investing a lot of time up front with a new tool, in order to get through the learning curve and make it faster in the future. This wasn’t one of those cases.
Start with the problem, and figure out your method for solving it, not the other way around. Take a little time to plan your journey and you’ll be happier with where you end up.
Nerd on the Bus 