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Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#401

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gadders wrote: post #298
snarkypixel wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to that, even if you don't like negotiating, it's helpful to understand the tactics used by the other person so you can counter them (or at least be aware of it). For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it." Another popular negotiation tactic is to get aske…

>>For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it." In the UK, some sleazy sellers of things like double glazing won't even start discussing the sale unless both husband and wife are present to prevent this tactic.

Sales people use essentially the same tactic: "i have to call the boss/check with my manager" and then "i tried but they said that's too little, but we can do £X; so I'll get the paper work" ...

Seems you either overpay or have to put up with the silly games and don't know if you're overpaying.

If the system were seeing optional efficiency it would give us all the info about BoM cost and hours worked and C-suite wages, dividends and profit rates, that would enable us to make informed decisions.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#402

Post by maccard »

cle wrote: post #233
boogies wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. You can get warnings when syntax isn’t available in your script’s flavor of shell in [neo]vi[m], emacs, or GNU ed with shellcheck, I’d be mildly surprised if there wasn’t a similar editor-agnostic linter for PHP.

I just tried this in VSCode using Intelephense and it detected the invalid syntax just fine ("PHP 5.4+ syntax found."). I've never done PHP development, but it only took a few clicks to set it up (install extension and go into preferences and change the language version). Since VSCode is just using LSP under the hood, that means it would also work fine in Emacs, [neo]vi[m], Sublime, Atom, etc. In the long run, I don'…

First of all, Intellij (and Visual Studio) are more than just LSP. They're debugging, source control, static analysis, test runners, profiling tools, database tools, etc.

Secondly, the state of LSP clients is a long way from matching Visual Studio or Intellij. When LSP is competitive with the major IDEs, I'll happily switch, but I don't see that in the next 5 years at least. As an example, try opening UE4 using any of the LSP implementations.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#403

Post by vinayan3 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #103

If your budget is a few hundred, an IntelliJ Ultimate license. For me it's a force multiplier. Built-in highlights of things that can be improved (e.g. linting) is a bonus. In the end, things like VS Code are just text editors. I mean, you can't get a warning that the `[]` syntax isn't available in your old codebase's flavor of PHP (5.2) in VS Code. I think. Alternatively: Take time off. If you have enough money to l…

I agree. I got license for the JetBrains All product pack. It's been a huge boost in my productivity for Python and C++ because the refactoring tools make mundane things so much faster.

Also, templating is incredibly powerful. I avoid copy / paste in favor of typing or generating things out. Copy/Paste is a really bad pattern and the overhead of having to put the code in makes me think about abstracting it much earlier than if I just copied and pasting things.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#404

Post by triceratops »

Solvitieg wrote: post #368
locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

In Canada, therapy is very expensive. About $150/h in the major cities. Meanwhile all my American friends get free therapy. Weird how that breaks the narrative about US healthcare.

It's not free in America, it's covered by many employer health insurance plans (and probably costs more than $150/h). I imagine many Canadian employers also offer supplemental insurance to cover therapy.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#405

Post by michjedi »

Impossible wrote: post #392
michjedi wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this - most of the libraries in my area have little if no technical books. I know exactly why too - I've frequently come across libraries in the UK that are selling off their technical books, because they're not receiving much attention. I've had multiple occasions where I've managed to buy dozens of books for the value of just one of them. It's not easy to even ask for a book. I've asked librarians for books…

I gave away technical books at my local library as they had a "free books section". Some of them were older editions of industry standard text books (Real-time rendering and PBRT first edition), but the library refused to take donations because they were "technical books". Granted a lot of them were really outdated 90s technical game programming books like "Windows 95 Game SDK Strategy Guide" and "The Black Art of Wi…

Still valuable reading, if at least for historical knowledge!

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#406

Post by systemvoltage »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #351
locochef wrote: post #204

The single best thing I did for professional development was see a therapist. In tech, our jobs are knowledge-based. You can't hammer a nail into a board while you're sitting on the couch with your child, but you can certainly think about software architecture. I've found that my job bleeds into my personal life, and vice versa, and I believe it is far more common than most people realize. Stress piles up and it affe…

+1 for therapy. Best $10K I ever spent. Over 18 months I ever spent.

Can you please tell us what kind of things were discusssed? Not going into your personal details, just general idea would be great.

A lot of people here who haven't talked to a therapist are wondering the same in unison.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#407

Post by hnmullany »

oneplane wrote: post #377
zestyping wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent a lot of time with therapists but they've only had the effect of being a sort of guard rail to keep me from falling too deep when I fall; it doesn't seem like they have helped me make any lasting improvements. Based on what I've heard from friends and on this thread, it sounds like it's possible to get a lot more out of talk therapy? What's your range of experiences been like with better or worse therapist…

Two cents: real change is not a lot of fun while it's happening, because change is hard, and makes some simple things take a lot more time and energy for a while.

From Angels In America

“Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?

Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice.

God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.

Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.

Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.

Harper: That's how people change.”

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#409

Post by systemvoltage »

vorpalhex wrote: post #362
gadders wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it." In the UK, some sleazy sellers of things like double glazing won't even start discussing the sale unless both husband and wife are present to prevent this tactic.

Suddenly time to become poly. "Uh, let me ask my second husband about this too..."

I laughed so hard, it's difficult to breathe.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#410

Post by [deleted] »

rectang wrote: post #101

I ran a lunch-time book club at work for groups between 3 and 10 people, covering technical topics like programming languages, version control, and so on. After a management change at the company, I couldn't get budget for books or lunches any more. So I bought the books and bought the lunches. The most effective way to learn something thoroughly is to teach it, and I was the facilitator for the book club, leading al…

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