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Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

#41

Post by rafark »

johnfn wrote: post #36
rafark wrote: post #34

Read other people's projects. Read books on design, architecture, patterns. Deeply analyse those reads without ever touching a computer. If I feel the need to write code I usually write it in a paper sheet and analyse it.

I see this advice often. However I feel like it never seems to work for me. One of the big reasons why is that I feel I don't get a sense of all the incorrect approaches and why they don't work. In a case where there are N incorrect approaches and 1 correct approach, by reading the code of the 1 correct approach I will get no sense of why the author dismissed the other N approaches. I feel this (understanding trade o…

I get what you're saying and that's one of the reasons the code should be deeply analyzed when you're learning, many times you'll find the answer to why that particular approach was selected. Very often authors point out why other approaches aren't suitable for that speciic purpose, many times theorically or by using abstract concepts.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

#42

Post by qaid »

xealgo wrote: post #31

I for one will often (and usually naturally) befriend the most talented developers I work with. Talking code often and bouncing ideas off of them will really help you see where you're lacking or where you can improve. Learning new languages and different paradigms can also play a huge role in how you approach future problems. Go to glot.io and play around with a handful of languages you've never touched. Read up on v…

I agree -- Being curious is a great way to improve yourself. Can you please recommend to me blogs on architecture and design patterns?

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

#47

Post by contingencies »

1. Maintain a system long term. This teaches you the benefits of alternative approaches the hard way.

2. Change languages. Forcing yourself to use a completely different paradigm can sometimes bring about architectural epiphanies.

3. Focus on data and communications instead of processing.

4. Meditate on and draw inspiration from timeless wisdom (eg. a good fortune database like mine @ https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup)

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

#48

Post by cookiecaper »

Find something interesting. If you want to be engaged, it has to be something that engages you. We spend most of our "mandatory effort" energy at school or work. If you have a side project or hobby, it will only happen if it's something you find at least somewhat interesting. Doesn't mean there can't be rote portions, but in general, it should be something you want to do.

Find a small task that you want to accomplish, identify something you want to learn along the way. Proceed to accomplish said task with the new tools.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

#49

Post by Joeri »

Teach. Find people to mentor, find user groups to present to. There is no better way to learn more about subjects you're superficially familiar with than to teach them. Pick subjects where you think you're an expert, and prove to yourself that you weren't, or pick subjects that you would like to know more about and try to understand them well enough to explain to someone in 45 minutes.

You will be terrible at this at first, but teaching is also a skill that takes lots of practice to acquire.

I would also agree with what others said: stop comparing yourself to others, no good will come of it. There is always someone better, there is always someone worse. It doesn't matter. Set a standard for yourself and meet your own standard.

P.S. If you're looking for a good resource to learn presenting from, I would recommend macsparky's presentations field guide.

Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?

#50

Post by molloy »

johnfn wrote: post #35

I work on progressively larger and larger apps. This teaches me more and more about coding in the large, in a very practical sense. Every time I learn about something new, my learning is explicitly motivated by the problems that I ran into while implementing the large app. I started by making a reasonably conplex TODO app, which took a few months. This taught me about the importance of declarative (popularized by Rea…

Do you mind sharing your vim extension? Would love to check that out. My coworker is interested in learning vim and he uses VS Code, so it sounds like a good introduction.
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