Thank you for sharing your opinion. I do agree with you, and maybe what I was trying to say and what you are saying are different things.
I couldn't find the exact citation from the book, but I will try to write down what I remember.
Colvin explains that with an example of Tiger Woods. He says that Tiger never subconsciously hit the ball. When he starts the movement of the arm to hit the ball and someone from the background screams, he can stop his arm halfway, and then after he is no longer distracted, he hits again.
Normally, when a mediocre player starts moving his arm in order to hit the ball, he no longer able to stop halfway through the action of arm swinging. And usually he would miss, because of concentration loss. He addresses that kind of behavior due to automation of some actions. He says that after some action has gotten automated, person performing it has almost no control over it. He also gives example of the professional car drivers and average drivers. Average driver will not be able to control the dangerous situation on the road due to the fact that his actions are almost automated. While professional drivers are able to see the situation much earlier, and steer and break more efficiently, because they are in better control of situation due to less automation of driving action (Less habit more conscious control).
I hope I could convey his words clearly, because I am not a native English speaker
Edit: Regarding programming, I noticed, the more code I write subconsciously, the more stupid bugs I get. Sometimes I write mysql_real_escape_string() instead of mysql_fetch_array() and then wonder whats gone wrong. I even look at the line with this bug for several minutes, until I stop, look away for a bit, and try to switch from autopilot to manual mode. After I fire up my real brain, I spot the bug in seconds, and have a stupid smile for a half second or so :)
I am reminded of a basketball player to was practicing before an away game. He missed the first few shot's, paused made an adjustment and then made the next several shots. A reporter asked what he changed and he said "I noticed the basket was 2 inches to low." It's not that he is constantly aware of all the individual stages of every shot, it's just that he can make conscious adjustments to those subconscious processes.
The secret is not being aware of all the minor details, it's the ability to pay attention at the correct level of abstraction when there is a problem. I once had a horrible bug that after several rounds of testing seemed vary odd, until I got the ram swapped out on the test box and everything worked just fine. I don't assume RAM is faulty every day, but it's something to consider when no other option seems reasonable.
I couldn't find the exact citation from the book, but I will try to write down what I remember.
Colvin explains that with an example of Tiger Woods. He says that Tiger never subconsciously hit the ball. When he starts the movement of the arm to hit the ball and someone from the background screams, he can stop his arm halfway, and then after he is no longer distracted, he hits again.
Normally, when a mediocre player starts moving his arm in order to hit the ball, he no longer able to stop halfway through the action of arm swinging. And usually he would miss, because of concentration loss. He addresses that kind of behavior due to automation of some actions. He says that after some action has gotten automated, person performing it has almost no control over it. He also gives example of the professional car drivers and average drivers. Average driver will not be able to control the dangerous situation on the road due to the fact that his actions are almost automated. While professional drivers are able to see the situation much earlier, and steer and break more efficiently, because they are in better control of situation due to less automation of driving action (Less habit more conscious control).
I hope I could convey his words clearly, because I am not a native English speaker
Edit: Regarding programming, I noticed, the more code I write subconsciously, the more stupid bugs I get. Sometimes I write mysql_real_escape_string() instead of mysql_fetch_array() and then wonder whats gone wrong. I even look at the line with this bug for several minutes, until I stop, look away for a bit, and try to switch from autopilot to manual mode. After I fire up my real brain, I spot the bug in seconds, and have a stupid smile for a half second or so :)