Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 326 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#241

Post by dimgl »

I definitely feel this a bit. I had to onboard onto Ruby and Rails recently and I truly hate it.

That being said, the reason why it wasn't an absolute nightmare for me is because I have good foundational skills and I genuinely enjoy software development. These two things have made it very easy for me to onboard. I also strive to understand how the internals works, and that speeds me up tremendously.

I'd encourage you to understand how the internals of Vue work. That way when you're working, you don't have to think about Vue itself, and just about what you're working on. If you really do feel like you're getting "dumber", start writing stuff down! The only way to truly never forget something is to understand it deeply, as if you can explain it to a 5 year old.

Anyways, this is my advice. I'd be happy to chat offline if you want some more advice (in my early 30s).

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#242

Post by telman17 »

kossTKR wrote: post #154
telman17 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started learning React I felt the same frustration but then it just clicked one day after maybe 2 months of struggling. I’m still waiting for the Vue click but it doesn’t seem to be happening.

Interesting, how long have you been using Vue3? I'm only 3 weeks in and still waiting for that video or diagram or tutorial that really inform me on why all of this extreme overhead is needed to perform simple tasks. Does anyone have any good resources that made them enjoy the Composition api, Pinia etc?

Maybe 3 months - the first two months I learned Vue 2 and then we were asked to do everything in Vue 3. I don’t mind the composition API but overall the framework feels over complicated at best, and goes out of its way to show you how much it’s not like another framework while using similar concepts. The result is that I now have to learn the same thing but with magic words. That could be the frustration talking though.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#243

Post by unethical_ban »

lupire wrote: post #140
blakewatters wrote: post #138

Your problem is very simple: you are working on bullshit. Across your entire description of your situation you never once mentioned what it is you are actually working on but called out the income you hit and frameworks you are playing with. I humbly submit that your problem is that you have lost the plot. Hate to break it to you chief but the libraries and frameworks and techniques you use to work are not the point.…

That doesn't explain why OP was able to learn and do bullshit before.

Similar to JimtheCoder, I think it is experience. As a fresh faced college grad, I got hired at a bank. They have good recruitment, and a decade ago, the entire company was almost cult-ish (in the least bad way possible). The mission was constantly talked about, our members are the most important, we are helping members - our neighbors and public servants - with their problems, and every employee works toward that mission.

It felt really important. And to some extent you can still feel that in some places, even that bank.

However, as you get more experience, and you see the same political mid-management games play out, and you realize a lot of the cynical realities of things, you can lose energy. Or, perhaps you watch people not doing the right thing, but having no power to convince them to do otherwise.

Like an old man telling a child that digging a hole with a shovel is better than digging it with a rock and watching them continue to use the rock: you just get worn out. ---

I agree with the main reply, that burnout is a thing, but that yes, it does help to be working on something you care about if you're going to put the level of mental effort required in software/IT. Sometimes I dream about being a bartender. You do your job, deal with the shit, and go home.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#244

Post by josefrichter »

It might be that you're bored. A senior developer of 15 years making multiple 6 figures shouldn't be doing Vue/React/Angular. Someone like that should be tackling much more complex computer science topics. Of course there are people who are perfectly happy doing something like React their whole career. But if you're not happy, this could also be one of the causes.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#245

Post by k8si »

helge9210 wrote: post #198
trevormcneal wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the whole tech thing is changing fast, ageism is a true thing, in a scenario where most of the previous knowledge can be ignored, being a senior with 5 years of experience, 10 or 20 doesn't change much. Given that young people usually simp for the companies much more due to being naive, they have a huge preference in the hiring process. Tech is removing the root of the knowledge, migrating from understanding the solu…

Half life of knowledge in our profession is more or less a year and a half. This means 5 years of experience is the maximum you can accumulate. Maybe years are not a good metric for experience.

There's a huge difference between understanding tools/libraries/frameworks/programming languages/APIs etc vs understanding how to build a system on top of any of these things that scales well, is maintainable, is easy to collaborate with others on, that can be extended quickly, that doesn't cost that much time/money to build in the first place, etc.

Yes the former changes every 1-5 years. Doing the latter well is much harder, no single tool can solve these problems, and I think years of experience really does help.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#246

Post by bigredhdl »

bbarn wrote: post #50

I'll pile on to the burnout suggestion with my own personal solution to how I fixed that problem. I'm early 40s, started coding around 13 or so, so it's been 30 years of software for me. About ten years ago after living in the web programming world for a few years I got kind of the same feeling you have. I missed my forms and windows app development, so I went to another company doing what I remembered enjoying. You…

Thanks for sharing. I've been in the "wane" stage recently and your story gave me some things to consider.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#247

Post by JoeDaDude »

bennysomething wrote: post #70

Yes went through this. Early 30s my dad died, completely changed my view on what I was doing. He was self employed and successful. I started to hate working for someone else. I really started to dislike being a developer. Kept trying to find a way out. Was depressed that being a Dev eats my life, all free time I felt I should be learning technologies Anyway fast forward nearly a decade and I'm really happy in my job.…

Maybe what happened is that once you become good at being a developer, you derived satisfaction from that even if you were working for someone else, or maybe you thought your "passion" was elsewhere.

This is the thesis of Cal Newport's book "So Good They Can’t Ignore You", summary here:

https://fourminutebooks.com/so-good-they-cant-ignore-you-sum...

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#248

Post by jdboyd »

blakewatters wrote: post #138

Your problem is very simple: you are working on bullshit. Across your entire description of your situation you never once mentioned what it is you are actually working on but called out the income you hit and frameworks you are playing with. I humbly submit that your problem is that you have lost the plot. Hate to break it to you chief but the libraries and frameworks and techniques you use to work are not the point.…

Or, a variation, instead of building something someone wants, build something you think is valuable and excites you.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#249

Post by nightski »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #238
brimble wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at it the other day after the discussion thread about JS frameworks, but bounced when I saw ".svelte" files. I accept (demand, really) TypeScript but I've become allergic to any attempt to add much more on top of JS than that. I can just see the next poor bastard coming along in a short year or two and going "oh god, WTF is a '.svelte' file? What did my piece of shit predecessor fall for?" I'm looking into V…

Things like .vue and .svelte are really more like hints to your Editor for which linter to use, which code highlighting etc. Also your build chain I guess. I'll admit it's annoying but it's still just "normal-ass code". Vue, for instance, is just html, JavaScript and css. A .vue file is just all three in one file with special syntax to indicate each section. At least, last I looked at vue it was.

That's true of Vue. Svelte has a compiler which changes and augments your code with additional code for it's state management system. So it's definitely not normal code.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#250

Post by 7speter »

jseban wrote: post #125
rightbyte wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting fed up with all the stupid technology grind is not necessarily burnout though. One could call it wisdom or experience too.

Yeah always switching tools basically resets your experience to zero, so you have to do the same mistakes over and over, no wonder it's hard to stay motivated. And the "senior" jobs have zero power, so you can't stop people from making mistakes, and trying to "influence" just makes the experience even more exhausting and frustrating when people have no reason to listen to you. I wish there was real senior roles you c…

> I wish there was real senior roles you could grow into where your experience is actually valued, and you would gain certain power to make decisions, but then the argument is that you can't hire juniors anymore because they think it's too uncool to have a boss.

Uhh... who are these junior people who don't like having a boss? I read the first part of this sentence and wondered why wouldn't a lower level colleague not want a senior helping them avoid potholes in the road...

Post reply on HN