> How do you guys keep learning new stuff?
You need a problem to solve. A problem which really matters to you.
> How do you keep improving?
Surround yourself with exceptional people. You will be the product of your five closest peers.
Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
61–70 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm upvoting it because it's incredibly common in high schools and college. People have to do tons of repetitive, boring stuff. They have piles of work. Many turn to Adderall to stay focused enough to get it done. Like it or not, it's how a huge chunk of people in college "keep improving" despite the challenges they face not getting better over time.
> People have to do tons of repetitive, boring stuff. A good programmer will automate this stuff and will not bother with it again. Maybe aderall is incentivizing the wrong behavior here.
Studying is repetitive boring stuff.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#63Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worst idea ever, stay off the chemical cocktails. It only takes one objective look and a minimum of reflection to see what Big Pharma is up to, and it's not good for anyone. Speed will make you feel better-ish, but it will also turn you into a Zombie-like shell without substance. I wouldn't recommend drugs at all without knowing more about the person I'm talking to, but I strongly prefer natural alternatives like wee…
You wouldn't recommend Adderall (a drug with extensive(!) safety research) but instead you would recommend weed and shrooms? Also speed != adderall.
Why on earth would you trust substances humans have been using for thousands of years in favor of something brewed in a lab by a pharma company with quarterly goals and a decade (or two?) of tests (perhaps with incomplete test coverage). Difficult choice.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#651. You need to recognize when you're not learning, for one thing. If it's easy, you're not learning. You need to push yourself into the zone of discomfort, where you feel clumsy and have a hard time. Now you're learning. 2. Find a mentor. Lacking that, find e.g. talk of someone explaining some hard techniques and then try to follow the advice. Even and especially if it feels clumsy at first. (More on those two here:…
If you have time, side projects for research can be a really helpful venue. In a work environment, there are always areas of the product/business you don't work on, and having your own project forces you to learn how the entire process works - I'm thinking of software - so things like web app deployment, design, taking credit cards, etc are often done by different teams.
A project that is visible gives you material for talks at meetups/conferences or articles for bigger blogs, which is a good way to meet people and get better at soft skills.
For people who have a experience / existing knowledge, watching conference talks can be a good way to add on new knowledge (e.g. my machine learning knowledge from school is getting dated, but seeing new tools / techniques in a talk is enough to figure out what to research).
Here's a big list of conference talks that I've been working on as a project - http://findlectures.com/?p=1&class1=Technology
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Analysis here can also mean rewriting it yourself from scratch (perhaps in high-level pseudo-code) the next day. If you can't make the same decisions the author did or understand them, then analyze again.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#67I actually wrote a tool that takes a screenshot of my desktop every five seconds: https://github.com/JesseAldridge/screen_recorder Once in a while I go back and review some of the work I did that day and look for ways to improve.
How do you use this tool? What have you learned from it?
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#68I saved this comment from jlcfly from an AskHN that was answered a long time ago.
"Teach them to be better than you. That may seem counterproductive. I have a type A personality, and I have decent coding skills. I've been in your situation a number of times. I also know there's these mythical expert developers out there that I can't seem to find (or afford). So, what to do? A few years ago I realized that if I continue down this path, I'll end up with some serious health issues due to the stresses that come along with having a reputation for being a really good developer. So, I decided that instead of searching for developers better than me, I would teach developers I work with how to BE better. It's taken a lot of patience. And it's taken me quite a bit to LET GO of my way of doing things. I had to take my ego out of the picture. (VERY hard to do.) Nowadays, I realize that developers don't have to BE better than me. I simply have to ALLOW them to do what they do without being so obsessive about it. Turns out, even junior developers really CAN do good work. They just need a little guidance that only comes with experience, and then they need me to get out of their way."
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#69I 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'm not sure that this is the way. It's much easier to get a small amount of knowledge about a lot of topics. If you want to be a generalist then that's great, otherwise, I think it's important to keep asking yourself "How can I drill deeper?"
This is specifically regarding the third point; I agree with the first two!
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep improving?
#70Teach. 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…
If you want to teach without leaving the house or standing in front of a group of people, try http://exercism.io/ (Open Source and free).
Solve simple coding problems, review the submissions of others and help them become better coders. Trying to clearly explain concepts to others is the best way to make sure you really know them yourself.
This is also something that you can do for 10-15 min every day, which will add up over time. Ask for feedback on your own solutions and find out ways others think you could improve things.