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Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#71

Post by rawoke083600 »

curuinor wrote: post #61
rawoke083600 wrote: post #35

I know exactly what you mean. As a counter point to the many "burnout answers" here which I completely agree with by the way. It could also be an example of "neuroplasticity" (hear me out). I'm 40 and been coding like it feels forever, I find it "relatively easy" to learn new frameworks or languages. What is much harder are new paradigms; example OOP vs functional. The last few months I've started to learn Clojure. M…

I write clojure all day every day for my job. Here's my tips: 1. Get on an nrepl. Not like, the non-text-editor repl, hook your text editor (or Cursive) up to the network repl and start evaluating sexprs from the text editor. doesn't have to be emacs, I do it on vim with conjure all day every day 2. Don't write too many macros 3. Use a lotta let-statements and threading macros (->, ->>, as->, cond->, etc), that's the…

Good tips :)

>You gotta write it like it's the lisp that it is

Haha ja, getting to that skillset is the main challenge for at this moment.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#72

Post by akomtu »

Peehaps you've just grown some wisdom and realised how meaningless it all is: where kids are excited to build a sandcastle, you see the rise and fall of that sandcastle before it's even built and see no reason to feel any excitment. Most software out there, especially the web part of it, is such sandcastles.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#73

Post by krageon »

Constant work fatigue and an inability to perform intellectually (either in terms of study of producing code) is what a burnout looked like for most of my ex-colleagues. You're about the correct age for one too, according to my observations (which are anecdotal).

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#74

Post by interactivecode »

I think sometimes people forget how hard learning is. It's painful, frustrating and difficult. Plus it takes a while (long while) to work through the first steps of learning something new.

It seems people think learning something completely new is the same as extending the knowledge or skills they already have developed. It's not the same at all.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#75

Post by tehmillhouse »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #57
tehmillhouse wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's definitely something to the neuroplasticity thing. Learning does take longer as we age, that's just a biological fact. > Man what a frustrating journey it has been ! I keep telling myself I'm a seasoned senior dev... This right here, that's something you're misunderstanding. Learning something new is supposed to be uncomfortable. To learn most effectively, you want to shape your mental behavior to min…

>Thinking you should be exempt from this just adds internal resistance to an already uncomfortable process. Wow, thanks ! That sounds like real practical advise ! I think you hit the nail on the head here ! > To learn most effectively, you want to shape your mental behavior to minimize surprise If you don't mind, could you expand on this part ? I'm not 100% clear on what you mean ?

You've already got that part down pat. "Shaping your mental behavior to minimize surprise" is just a really complicated way of saying "attempting to understand a thing". There's no secret technique here, I was just trying to tie the process of learning back to surprise.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#76

Post by jmcgough »

If you don't have a therapist, it's worth looking for one. Honestly, everyone should have a good therapist, especially these days.

I had a similar experience and for me it was burnout compounded by years of ignoring mental health problems. I took a break for most of the pandemic, got a good therapist and psychiatrist and I'm so much more functional than I was at any other point in my adult life. But I really needed the time and space to focus on fixing myself, something that can be impossible when working long hours at a startup.

Re: Ask HN: Why can't I learn anymore?

#77

Post by incrudible »

rawoke083600 wrote: post #35

I know exactly what you mean. As a counter point to the many "burnout answers" here which I completely agree with by the way. It could also be an example of "neuroplasticity" (hear me out). I'm 40 and been coding like it feels forever, I find it "relatively easy" to learn new frameworks or languages. What is much harder are new paradigms; example OOP vs functional. The last few months I've started to learn Clojure. M…

Having gone all the way and back, I will say this: Undogmatic imperative programming (with objects) is superior to pure functional programming. You can still use functional constructs and immutable data where it makes sense. You never want to shoehorn a problem into a niche programming paradigm.
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