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Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

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Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#121
There is no silver bullet when it comes to programming.

No matter how simple a new framework promises to make things, you end up having to learn as much as with any other to achieve a non-trivial result.

When I realized this, I started looking at frameworks and languages not based on hype, but based on the style I would enjoy learning the most with.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know more...

Not sure if thats the kind of thing that OP meant, but I have a sheet of paper where I note all the sport I do, which motivates me to do more since I started it ~3 years ago.

I'm taking it as OP saying as ideas are a dime a dozen, so are people's opinions. Put them in place (meaning, get some from people, or cut them out of your life, if their bad) so you can get feedback.

This is double edged. I left my wife about 3 months ago now - I was really, really, not happy and I finally had enough after 8 years. Everyone had an opinion. People I thought were very good friends turned on me, gave me shit for leaving (friends of mine; not friends of ours) and others were very supportive (mostly family). Sometimes to many opinions are a bad thing; but to few can be bad also though.

Take the opinions you can get; run a filter or 2 on them and go with your heart.

(I don't talk to the people that gave me shit for doing it anymore; and I'm much more happier now, both without the wife in my life, and without those friends in my life)

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#123
We've ether passed, our will pass in the near future several points of no return with regards to our dependence on technology. There's a good chance that this will be to our detriment. Here's a talk I have about the topic recently with more details: https://youtu.be/q5x7njMMugw

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#125
post #86

You can put more effort in and potentially make more money. You can not make more time, no matter how hard you try. You can pay someone to do something to free up a portion of your time, which you can then use as you see fit. You need to prioritize how you spend your time. This is not a one-time exercise. It's an ongoing process. You look at the things that you do in a given day, week, month, and year. You see how th…

Don't give up on tomatoes! You say that they do need maintenance, but you plant them, water them, give them sun - I bet you can automate a lot these steps - watering and nutrition, for example. You can give them extra boost with some artificial light and heat. You can do it!

I am not sure the goal was to swap gardening with engineering gardening automation ;)

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#127
- Many well known people in tech are charlatans.

- There is no integrity in keeping silent when witnessing wrongdoing, even when speaking out may harm your current business prospects.

- Most "interesting" ideas in tech currently simply aren't.

- "Software Craftsmanship" is a scam.

- Programmers are far less logical than they would themselves believe.

- Non-tech project managers in tech teams are beyond useless; they're often plainly harmful to the business.

This is not an exhaustive list, and I didn't learn all these things in the past 12 months. Some have just been beaten into me more over the past year.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#128
Don't forget to enjoy life. Travel, go to restaurants, go to museums, go see music live in concert, go to festivals, hang out with friends, get drunk (if that's your thing), forget about your worries for just an hour, a day, a week, to clear your mind and get a fresh perspective. Throw off the shackles of modern civilized life once in a while. "Forget" your smartphone, you can live without constant social media updates and news articles. It's perfectly OK to be bored, don't be afraid to be alone with your own thoughts for a while. Daydreaming is healthy.

Everything is all fucked in the end, anyway. Might as well remember to live life while you still can.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#130

* Five co-founders are too many. * If you are working on someone else's crappy idea, think about working on your own crappy idea. * Call people you might need later when you don't need them. Or they tend to disappear when you do need them. * Learn about the stock market and invest right away. You'll make money, lose money, then understand money. * Build as many projects as time allows. It's nice to have the option to…

> If you are working on someone else's crappy idea, think about working on your own crappy idea.

That's an excellent point. I definitely prefer working in small companies, then you're closer to people's crappy ideas. But still you never get the full benefit as you never take the full risk.

> Don't ask people what they think about your idea. They'll either be supportive or mean to you. None of these are about your idea.

There was a talk about this recently on HN [0]. Asking for feedback about your product/idea is useless because people also lie. The only way is to ask them about their problems around the area you are looking into, or else get users in to test your product and video them.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_xjb7LB7VY

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