Start a company with a friend will bite you back one day (for me 20 years after the company starts !)
Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
31–40 of 322 posts
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#32Math.
Multivariable calculus and differential equations weren’t a part of my undergraduate CS curriculum. Now that I’m doing an MEng in AI, I have to learn the hard math I skirted by before.
I don’t have the time or money to take the proper math classes so I’m learning everything myself. I have to figure out my own structure and timeline.
Without the math, I wouldn’t be much more than a technician when it comes to AI. It’s worth the work.
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#33Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (with legal representation).
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#34"You are not that special."
Can be a shock to the ego when you leave a top school, but if you take it the right way, it takes some pressure off.
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#35Don’t fish without a license
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#36Make things pretty. No amount of hard work and usefulness can amount to a beautiful product. I have strong feelings about Lean Startup who told me to create a MVP, which made me look like an amateur. So, listen to the marketing people and wait to release a beautiful finished product.
"...which made me look like an amateur." This made me chuckle since I can only imagine the frustration.
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#37Documentation is like sex. If it is good, it is good. If it is bad it is good
But if the client wants me to pretend I care enough to do it well, they gotta pay.
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#38Always roll up your window when driving past the archery range.
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#39I learned programming the hard way—by starting with imperative programming.
(Of course this doesn't apply to everyone, as I'm already a pretty mathematical person, and functional programming just immediately clicked and made sense. YMMV. In contrast, the first time I learned quicksort I spent an entire afternoon before I made sense of all the swapping and increment/decrement of array indices. In a way, I really hoped I hoped I would be introduced to programming with a better textbook, say SICP, which doesn't talk about assignment until one third into the book. It just suits my style so much more.)
Re: Ask HN: What did you learn the hard way?
#40Personal finance.
I never took a budgeting class in high school and college, my parents lived paycheck to paycheck (still do), when I earned my first internship I was making over $1000 per pay period, that was a lot of money for someone who had only worked part time jobs for $10/hr before hand.
By the time I got my second internship I earned more than my mother, who was the breadwinner. Once I was converted to full time I had more money than I knew what to do with. It took a few months to stop making stupid purchases, learn how to budget, save, and invest. Painful lesson.