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Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#31

Post by SmellTheGlove »

endswapper wrote: post #30
SmellTheGlove wrote: post #22

Understanding data. I've always had a fairly easy time learning core business processes and tying the data I'm looking at back to the activity that generated it. It's been really useful in managing analytics and data services because nothing I work with is a bunch of rows and columns without meaning to me, and as a result, I can deliver information based on what a given group is trying to accomplish (versus what they…

+1 for tangent...I mean context, explanation and relevance. I appreciate the complete response.

I like my tangents. Occasionally I think I should try and keep it under control, but some of my best ideas have started off as tangents and eventually realized as root causes and such.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#34

Post by unlikelymordant »

marmot777 wrote: post #27
rajacombinator wrote: post #7

Knowing how to use Google really well so I can find answers to bugs, tutorials, code snippets, etc. Learned the importance of this from a wise older Chinese programmer at my first job ever, an internship: "I don't really know how to code anything, I just copy it from Google."

I've seen several references to Google magic. Give a quick tutorial or provide a couple examples? I know you can do things like +this or -that and other sort of basics for more precision. I'm guessing I've barely scratched the google search service. You guys are at Google Level 12 or something. :-)

I have found site:reddit.com can be good to restrict results to a certain site. Inurl: if you know a bit of text in the url. Filetype:pdf can be handy if you only want e.g. powerpoint presentations. Beyond that I think it is just knowing what things are called so you can search directly for things.

For open directories you can use intitle:index.of last.modified booktitle

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#35

Post by kafkaesq »

greenyoda wrote: post #9
rajacombinator wrote: post #7

Knowing how to use Google really well so I can find answers to bugs, tutorials, code snippets, etc. Learned the importance of this from a wise older Chinese programmer at my first job ever, an internship: "I don't really know how to code anything, I just copy it from Google."

I agree that being able to search effectively for information is an important skill - I do it quite a bit. But if someone doesn't really know how to code anything, doesn't that imply that they don't really understand how anything really works? And if you don't understand how something works, how can you fix it when something inevitably goes wrong?

Of course you have to understand how things work.

But in terms of getting things done, search engines can be amazingly helpful.

But if someone doesn't really know how to code anything, doesn't that imply that they don't really understand how anything really works?

Just because you know how to code doesn't mean you have to grind your gears doing root cause analysis on every obscure error message that bubbles up -- when about 80% of the time you can just paste the message into a search engine, and get a pretty good understanding within about 30 seconds. And save your precious grey matter-accessible calories for the other 20%.

In fact, in many roles you'd be crippling yourself (and wasting your employers money) if you didn't know how to use search engines effectively.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#36

Post by soulchild37 »

eb0la wrote: post #33

I am able to crash any piece of software or hardware. I still don't know if this is a superpower but it helps a lot when designing stuff.

Same here, this power in invaluable to me while I was working as a software tester previously.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most surprising technical skill you possess?

#37

Post by ahazred8ta »

jasonkester wrote: post #16

Computer Programming. I grew up in the C64/Apple II age when computers were cool and all, but still kinda toys. "Computer Programmer" was a job title, but not a very good one. Certainly not a well paid profession or one with any hope of advancement or prestige. The best you could hope for was a job in the basement at some Fortune 500 company or maybe scraping by at one of the little companies making video games or th…

Bravo. For folks who are listing soft skills, iirc the OP wants under-appreciated TECHNICAL skills.
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