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

Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 579 posts

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#471

Post by rane »

geokon wrote: post #197
beamatronic wrote: post #116

SQL. Ultimately a software company is a business, run by business people who have to solve business problems. Often to do that they come up with questions which need to be answered by ad-hoc (written on the fly for one purpose) SQL queries. Having that ability, to answer arbitrary questions FAST will elevate your status in the minds of managers and business people.

What's a good place to start learning SQL? (for someone with 5+ years C++ and now dabbling in Clojure/ELisp)

This might be useful: https://selectstarsql.com/

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#472

Post by somberi »

songzme wrote: post #247

Learning how to smile. I would spend time in front of the mirror practicing my smile for different situations. During interviews I would force myself to smile. It helped get rid of some nervousness. When I get stuck on a problem I would smile stupidly and usually the interviewer would help me out. When I feel like conversations are getting heated I would take a step back and smile, it helps me direct the conversion t…

Paul Eckman's claim-to-fame is his work of proving that chnaging facial muscles changes the underlying emotions (in extension to the commonly known fact that our facial muscles change to reflect our emotions).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman#Contributions_to_th...

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#475

Post by buboard »

mattlondon wrote: post #142

Computer Science degree. Sure, lots of us "learnt" programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I'll be on my way thanks very much. I was very wrong. Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at l…

If you are interested in CS-related research (like, really interested to make theoretical contributinos), then CS is obviously needed. For the rest of coders, i 'd say a math degree or a physics degree might teach more skills and a better appreciation of intution. I see sometimes programmers trying to apply extreme abstractions to simple situations that makes my physicist self almost angry. It also makes it easier to justify going with what works, rather than with what justifies the time spent to learn compiler theory.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#476

Post by buboard »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #458
m90 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in a few real world examples of these cases where you are able to apply the CS knowledge in your day job. Would you mind sharing one or two?

We were storing HTML blobs in a database, and we needed to run through all of them and manipulate some tags. A coworker argued that we should use regex. I was able to turn that into a teaching moment about the Chomsky hierarchy, and how (simple) regex can't be used to parse languages which feature arbitrary levels of nesting.

but did you manipulate the tags without regex?

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#477

Post by [deleted] »

jarekdziedzic wrote: post #419
galfarragem wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say, knowing any foreign language, is a very rewarding skill. I'm not a 'natural' regarding language learning - I've to push it - but it definitely pays. In my case is Slavic languages with emphasis on Polish. It's a long-term hobby.

As a native, this is the first time I hear of someone learning Polish as a foreign language as a hobby, as opposed to having a partner or a job in Poland. This must be hard work. I am happy it works for you as a hobby :-)

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#479

Post by niklasd »

kodablah wrote: post #175
mattlondon wrote: post #142

Computer Science degree. Sure, lots of us "learnt" programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I'll be on my way thanks very much. I was very wrong. Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at l…

While I have no doubt this paid dividends for you, I'm not convinced that the cost/benefit is greater on the whole than alternatively spending those 4 years doing real-world development. Subjective, sure, but from my perspective there are too many amazing self-taught developers and too many subpar ones with degrees to automatically justify the 4 year time and money cost for the average person (concerning skill, caree…

I agree that self-teaching is a very important skill, but it is a skill that I learned in my university time. It itself is a self taught skill, of course. At least in Germany, lectures are not compulsory, and if I find I don't learn enough, I go home and try to understand it on my own.

Second, I dispute that spending those 4 years doing real-world development would have yielded greater benefit. The thing is, he'll be doing his whole life real-world development, so the longer he is in the profession, the smaller the benefit of the additional amount of experience will be. On the other hand, in the four years of college, he has the chance to learn some other stuff deep in a way that he won't have the chance while he's working.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#480

Post by alexchamberlain »

MattHood0 wrote: post #61
alexchamberlain wrote: post #6

Programming (I feel like that might be cheating on HN...) I started programming about 16 years ago (I think), when my Dad bought a basic introduction to HTML for himself, which I ended up "borrowing". I super geeky teenage life followed where I learned various languages, including Python, Delphi and an obscure language called RapidEuphoria (honest, that is a programming language, with some interesting features actual…

I'm curious about your experience going from a maths degree to a software engineering career - do you find the maths to be specifically and/or broadly relevant to your work? Are there any anecdotes you'd like to share on the process?

Little slow replying to this one, but that's fortunately given 3 other people in a similar position to reply and I can't agree more with the sentiment. Have I used my knowledge of approximating PDEs using multi-variate finite element methods? No, not really - though it makes for some interesting conversations with meteorologists occasionally. Whether it's the deep understanding of logical constructs (everyone should know what the contrapositive is) or the ability to model a problem and remove cruft, the way of thinking a maths degree instills will be invaluable forever.
Post reply on HN