Okay, let me tell you about this thing I tried, called the TJ Hamilton approach. Well, not really called that officially, I guess. It was just scribbled on a sticky note stuck inside an old notebook I found. Found it ages ago, really, when I was cleaning out the garage. Boxes full of stuff from my old job, you know how it is. Most of it was junk, but I kept a few notebooks. This note just said “TJ Hamilton – Core First, Only Core”. Didn’t even remember writing it or who TJ Hamilton was. Maybe a guy I worked with? Or something I read? Who knows.
Anyway, I was stuck on this little side project. Just a small tool for myself, but the main part, the calculation engine, was giving me headaches. Kept getting bogged down in setting up the interface, handling edge cases, logging stuff. Typical stuff. Then I remembered that weird note. “Core First, Only Core”.
So I thought, what the heck, let’s give it a try. I literally deleted or commented out everything else. No user interface, no file loading, no error checks, nothing. Just a single function that took hardcoded inputs and did the main calculation. That’s it. Just the absolute bare minimum logic. It felt totally wrong. Like building a car with only the engine and one wheel.
Honestly, it was uncomfortable. My fingers were itching to add `try-catch` blocks, to put in some `print` statements to see what was going on. But I stuck to the note. Core first. Only core. I spent maybe a whole afternoon just on that single piece of logic. Refining it, testing it with different hardcoded values, making sure the calculation itself was rock solid.
Getting it Working, Sort Of
And you know what? It worked. That core piece, isolated from everything else, became really clear in my head. I found the bug in my logic that had been bugging me. Because there was nothing else to distract me. Just the pure problem.
So, phase one done. Core logic nailed. Felt pretty good. But then came the hard part. Okay, not hard, but awkward. Now I had to add everything else back in. First, I built the stuff to get inputs into it, not hardcoded ones. Then added basic error handling for bad inputs. Then the logging I needed. Then wrapped it in the simple UI I wanted.
It felt a bit like working backwards. Like, sometimes I had to adjust the core function’s inputs or outputs slightly to make it fit with the error handling or the UI. It wasn’t as smooth as building it all together sometimes is. Felt a bit clunky, adding layers after the fact.
So, What’s the Verdict?
Did I like it? It’s weird. I wouldn’t use it for everything. For regular web apps or CRUD stuff? Nah, too slow, too much back-and-forth adding the layers. You’d drive yourself crazy.
But for that one tricky bit? That core algorithm or piece of logic that needs intense focus? It was actually pretty effective. It forced me to simplify and focus like crazy.
- Pro: Super focused, helped isolate and solve a tough core problem.
- Pro: The core logic felt really solid afterwards.
- Con: Adding other layers later felt awkward, sometimes needed rework.
- Con: Probably slower overall for standard projects.
It reminds me a bit of that whole situation years back when I switched jobs. Left a place where everything was done one specific way, very rigid. Moved to a place that was a total mix, different teams using different tools, different methods. Looked messy from the outside, like this TJ Hamilton thing felt messy while doing it. But sometimes, that messy mix, or a weird niche method, is what you need for a specific problem. One size doesn’t fit all, I guess. So, this TJ Hamilton note? It’s staying. Might need it again someday when I get really stuck on something specific.
