Downside of understanding software

The day was ending and I thought "why not fix my life by solving my pending tasks?"

So I started to search a house. At least to build up some opinion, because I don't really know which is the place I'd like to live.

But before any search on the website (a real state marketplace built with NextJS), I saw its API.

The API is very interesting:

• Plain readable JSON
• Nice auto-explicative parameters for filters
• Pagination without apparent page size limit
• Ranking and sorting
• No perceptible rate limit
• No XSRF tokens

And then, 100 minutes flew away, and I was late to sleep.

In the end I progressed nothing in my initial task, but built a desire to populate a database with all I can dump, to explore the data locally later.

Maybe this is a sign that I'd rather to outsource this boring task, as asking advice for someone in this area, instead of searching in a JS-based website. Or I can find some meaning in build a privacy client for this site, with the belief that it'll be useful for me and others.

But no matter what, I can't deny this is a waste of time.

I think the problem of understanding software is that it becomes a distraction hook for when you use it, which invites you to dive into the wonderland of absolute truths, in which doubt is just mere lack of understanding.

Life would be easier if it was pragmatic like that. Maybe it is and it's just matter of lack of understanding…