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Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

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Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#201

Post by devhead »

itsreallyme wrote: post #174
fhood wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our code is self-documenting. If you need documentation then the code isn't written well enough" -Assholes who don't know what it is like to work with mature code bases.

"Our code is self-documenting. If you need documentation then the code isn't written well enough" -Assholes who don't know what it is like to work with mature code bases. - People who don't know how to write clean code

or maybe they just didn't write the code? i mean, if it's mature it likely was a result of years of effort and many hands involved. some documentation is always better than none, lack of documentation is either laziness or dogma; neither of which is a valuable mindset when working on a team for a business.

Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#202

Post by your-nanny »

jonesdow wrote: post #171
polpenn wrote: post #44

Life, by default, is suffering. The surprise is not the fact that there is suffering around the world, but how we managed to achieve the level of prolonged peaceful co-existence that we have today. We should act in such a way that suffering or chaos is reduced---however small such reduction may be. Suppose you had a choice between watching T.V. and washing the dishes. Watching T.V. means, perhaps, that your spouse wi…

Speaking of dishwashing and life lessons. When I was in college (20 years ago) and sharing an apartment with 3 colleagues, the guys were leaving their dishes unwashed in the kitchen sink. Initially I washed my own dishes after finising a meal, only to find out the colleagues happily used my clean dishes then let them dirty in the sink. I realized I'm washing them twice: once when picking them dirty from the sink, was…

no but you can do like the Romans and break all their plates.

Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#203

Post by csours »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #54
csours wrote: post #12

There are (at least) 3 sides to exercise: Strength, Cardio, and Stretching. They are each at least as important as the others. Go to the dentist. Even if you have great teeth.

Stretching is probably mostly hype. E.g., https://www.painscience.com/articles/stretching.php

Isn't everything mostly hype? After you have a certain minimal level of strength and cardio capacity, how much do those actually affect your life?

From the article: "Although it can boost flexibility, the value of this is unclear, and no other measurable and significant benefit to stretching has ever been proven."

The thing I had to learn the hard way was the value of flexibility. You can pump out squats and go for a jog, but if your knees and ankles hurt when you go down stairs, you have a problem. If you can't sit on the ground with your back straight, you have a flexibility problem. A lot of lower back pain comes from flexibility issues.

What is the value of flexibility? Go visit a nursing home and see people who can barely move. Part of that is lack of strength, part is lack of cardio, and part is lack of flexibility.

----

Also, you should beware of lessons learned the hard way. A lot of times they are another way expressing a pain point, sometimes with a solution that worked - but that solution may not be optimal.

Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#204

Post by JeanMarcS »

anfilt wrote: post #113
JeanMarcS wrote: post #31

Start a company with a friend will bite you back one day (for me 20 years after the company starts !)

20 Years? That sounds good from a business stand point? However, I guess how much of your friendship suffer during how much of that?

The story is a bit more complicated than that but long story short it came out of nowhere and left me emotionally crushed for more than a year.

Now I struggle to get the company back on track (as he « sold » me his shares without leaving me another option), and it’s a bit complicated but on the way.

Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#205

Post by devhead »

1. question everything.

2. trust no one, not even yourself.

3. hard work, is money in the bank.

4. with two paths in the road... take the scarier one.

5. pay off your debts faster than expected.

6. give more than you get.

7. listen more than you speak.

8. always be prepared, to find another job.

9. love unconditionally.

10. try not to think in absolute terms.

11. everyone has a story

edit: format

Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#206

Post by niccl »

Fix the problem you can see then deal with what's left

I was working for a company that made lighting equipment for touring bands. One band had decided they wanted the biggest lighting desk in the world (this was in the early 80's). We cobbled together two of the company's latest digital desks as master-slave, and it nearly worked. Two problems remained as we got really close to the band's tour starting: a weird flickering in some of the indicator LEDs in the slave, and the output level (controlling the lights on stage) would sometimes wander around unpredictably.

We had a quick look and decided that the output level thing was a major issue which had to be dealt with first. The LED flickering problem was a) minor, and b) caused by a simple clocking problem which we could deal with later. We spent 48 hours or more with no sleep, trying to fix the output level thing. Got it just about useable, but not perfect.

The tour was due to start the next day so we decided to give up on the output level problem and fix the LED flickering, so that there was only one issue, albeit a bad one. Spent an hour fixing the clocking issue so that the LED's were OK, and lo, the output problem was sorted.

If only we'd dealt with the simple problem first, then we'd have managed to get some sleep!

And before you say that was a one off and bad luck or bad triaging or something, I've used the same heuristic more than once and it's always paid

Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?

#208

Post by madeuptempacct »

tralarpa wrote: post #194
madeuptempacct wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to gymnasts and martial artists. I have seen the "science" of this over the years, but I have also seen the practical fact that it's absolutely unavoidable.

Gymnasts, martial artists, ballet dancers and some athlets (e.g. javelin throwers) stretch to increase their range of motion because the latter is beneficial for their activities. The effect is temporary (+) unless you start at a young age and ruin your joints (-> China). If you don't belong to those groups, stretching doesn't do much for you, as has been repeatedly pointed out in various publications. The other bene…

Try squatting deep without being flexible. Squatting --> strength --> better posture, metabolism, & bone density.
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