Novice and Master

Reading today about "conscious competence" made me cranky. But then I stumbled on this in my own slides:

The difference between the novice and the master is simply that the novice has not learnt, yet, how to do things in such a way that he can afford to make small mistakes. The master knows that the sequence of his actions will always allow him to cover his mistakes a little further down the line. It is this simple but essential knowledge which gives the work of a master carpenter its wonderful, smooth, relaxed, and almost unconcerned simplicity.

Christopher Alexander A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction 1977