Ask HN: Maybe I kind of suck as a programmer – how do I supercharge my work?

Writers realize that there are other people who can write an extremely well-structured, gripping novel in a matter of months. Artists see their colleagues do live drawing and suddenly understand that something that is painful and difficult for them comes easy for these other people. (I don't have musical talent, but I expect something similar happens there.)

Are they geniuses? Probably some are, but mostly they have just worked very hard and built a set of habits that lets them approach creative problems with that seeming ease.

Making software is really primarily a creative pursuit like these others -- it just has a bit more math and a bunch more high-tolerance engineering thrown in.

Personally I think of programming as a cross between architecture and writing: I'm making something that has a visual presence and which end users can "live in" or "visit" (very much like a building), but it's also a story because the interactive medium necessarily imposes a narrative. This way of thinking helps me figure out the elements that go into software products... But probably everybody must find their own metaphors to make sense of what they want to do in this field.

But when I read the code I saw the code was really suboptimal (tech debt, and sometimes more convoluted than it strictly needed to be). That changed my perspective on code a bit. That did not change my programming rigor though.

My point is that sometimes excellent products are not necessarily excellent from an engineering perspective.

Now, to assess your engineering skills there's a book called the IEEE SWEBOK (Software engineering body of knowledge), that is an index of the different areas of software engineering. You can go through each one and assess your strength and work on some of the imbalances this assessment would reveal.

But for heavens sake, why? Do you actually care about how audio destuttering works, or do you just want your app to work well? Do you want to spend every waking moment thinking about a problem, or take time out to deconstruct Marvel tropes?

And yes, the programmers your talking about are the 1%. Do you think every good dev has books written about their work?

It's scary, to think there's a whole new generation of programmers who probably can learn faster and more fully internalize algorithms and data structures and design patterns... but we can all keep learning. There's no limit to how much you can learn in this field, so to supercharge your work the answer is simple: work 80-100 hour weeks like Elon, but make sure you're actually producing at least 80% of those hours.. meaning, writing and creating code not just reading or consuming knowledge. I don't know how many people I've met that assume poking around reddit, HN or s/o means "working." Those people will never outshine you if you continuously push your limits and are always feeling in awe. That means you're on to something.

Keep it up, you're doing exactly what you should be doing - reflecting.

I would add that if you're a "pull" person, don't bother applying to the Googles and Facebooks of this world. Their hiring process is extremely oriented towards "push" learners, presumably because you need lots of those people to build something at that enormous scale.

Instead look for opportunities where you get to do something you don't really know how to do. (There's a number of reasons why people would let you do that, but often it comes down to being in the right place and being patient.) That's how you grow, not by memorizing data structure answers from "Cracking the Code Interview".

(I know, dissing the tech interview is a HN cliché... But young people seem to attach unwarranted amounts of self-worth to how well they do at interviews at the Top 4 companies, so it's worth reminding that it's really not meant for everyone and you can do well without passing that standard.)