I teach it to my kids. The lesson is that I find out that I didn't know it half as well as I thought I did once I try to explain it to them.
Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
41–50 of 530 posts
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#42I've found a curiosity-based learning approach to be effective for me. Rather than trying to put X amount of time into programming like it's a chore (or a prison sentence) I try to find things that spark my interest. Lately I've been trying to figure out the inner workings of the single-page application framework that we use at work and I'm slowly starting to create my own as well.
Asking questions has helped me a lot questions like "how does this work?" has motivated me to read code (which I think can be more useful than writing code sometimes) and try to learn things as they really are rather than how I assumed they were built (I've discovered some interesting patterns and came to some interesting realizations this way).
I actually try to minimize my time spent reading blogs and books but sometimes I find wikipedia to be very good at giving me really good information that isn't as dogmatic or opinionated.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#43It was never hard for me. I'm naturally a late night person, and my daughter slept from 9pm to 5-6am pretty much weeks after coming home, and just got lazier until she hit 18 :)
All that said, 9pm to midnight was always plenty of time for me to keep up on anything involving a computer. For some, it might not be. The day light hours, and time before she'd go to bed, were all about her. If you run around, do homework with, cook dinner and play with your child all night long, it's much easier to get them to sleep through the night! I consider myself lucky, but many of my friends through bike racing, and other outdoor related activities are similarly active people, and their kids are exposed to active, high energy pursuits in the day time as well and - you guessed it - most of them sleep pretty normally.
Also, admittedly, the day I worry about my github commit graph is the day I think I need therapy. Life's more than contributing to code projects.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#44The nice thing about having kids is that it forces you to think about time management . Think about how much time you waste chit chatting, eating lunch, watching TV, surfing the Internet, etc. After kids, you'll want to rethink how you spend time and cut down on non-productive activities. That's exactly what I did - I reconfigured my time around productive work and kids. On week days, I allocate 7-8 hours for my day…
The nice thing about having kids is that it forces you to think about time.
It's the time that rolls on whether you are present or not. It's the time when you said something to your kids and you realized you are becoming your father or your mother. It's the happy times and the sad times, it's the times of intense passions and times of gentleness. It's the time of living fully, without regrets, the time with the people you love, walking the path with purpose.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#45My advice, fwiw. Do whatever you decide you want to do to "keep up" with github, open source, etc. But keep it absolutely as separate as possible from your family time. When you have a day with the kid, make sure that you disconnect and get yourself as fully as you can into the right mindset. "My job today is to enjoy my time with my son/daughter, to be there for them, to be present with them." Leave your phone at ho…
> If you find yourself thinking that your parenting time is an annoying distraction from the coding problem you're trying to solve, you're in dangerous territory and need to re-calibrate.
I'm not a parent, but surely this is a little off; either can be a distraction from the other, the thing is to balance which the primary task is and when.
For example, say you get a phone call at work to inform you that your child's got into some kind of trouble at school (for example - I'm sure yours are great and this will never happen!) and that you need to pick them up. This could absolutely be a distraction from some coding/work problem you're trying to solve, but you're hardly in 'dangerous territory'.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#46How dedicated are you to becoming a 10xer? You don't have to sacrifice your relationship with your kids to level up your skills – you need to cut out the distractions that are holding you back.
Not worrying about Nxer but careful not to become a furniture in the team and certainly don't want to come to work only for next paycheck !
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#47My kids are 8 and 6, last thing I learnt was to knit some months ago. Last thing I coded in my spare time was a midi generator. I'm not a super human, need to sleep 7-8 hours, don't go to the gym and instead bike to work every other day and enjoy playing videogames.
It is difficult to find a balance as responsibilities don't scale linearly, combination of different situations are more complex than the sum of the parts. Just think about this: When you get out of the office, what do you have to do? I'm not referring to what you want to do but to the things that you are "forced" to do. Probably nothing or very little (gym, laundry, etc).
When you have a family, you have to consider lots of unknowns when returning home: problems, chores, play time, illness, vacations, homework, parties, injuries, different hobbies per family member, sibling rivalry, etc. You have to consider everyone in the family and all the combinations so, of course you have way less spare time to enjoy for yourself.
That being said, here are some ideas:
1) There are lots of things to learn other than what can be shared in your Github account graph. Having kids forces you to diversify and that is good.
2) Kids are a great opportunity to learn mentorship. They need to learn everything: how to talk, walk, ride a bicycle, eat, manage their time, etc. Learning how to distill your knowledge and propagate it is a really good skill for a programmer.
3) All the good programmers that keep up and share things: It is easy to see 20 great programmers sharing their projects in twitter and think that they a super-human, but remember that for some of them, that is their job and that it is easy to feel you don't do much when comparing yourself to a collective that is delivering every day something awesome.
4) There are things you never got to learn/do but with kids you can have the opportunity (or be forced :)) to. In my case: camping and surfing
The ultimate trick is to stay in a mental state that allows you to do those things, it is easy to sometimes feel overwhelmed with so many things going on that depend on you.
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#48My kids are 8 and 6, last thing I learnt was to knit some months ago. Last thing I coded in my spare time was a midi generator. I'm not a super human, need to sleep 7-8 hours, don't go to the gym and instead bike to work every other day and enjoy playing videogames. It is difficult to find a balance as responsibilities don't scale linearly, combination of different situations are more complex than the sum of the part…
very good point on mental state !
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#49Cut down on TV. Wake up super early on Saturdays and get about 3 hrs of skill building time. Occasionally take a day off work to do a straight 8 hr skill session for self. Find a friend at work to do a class with and make a plan with your significant other for one hr a week to dedicate to the class. You and your friend can keep each other motivated! I feel this is a super important question. I've published it on Link…
doesn't look like a valid link !
Re: Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?
#50effective time management is the key.
I get up at 5:00am - until 7:00am is learning time.
add another 2 hours of daily train commute, plus last hour of day in the office, and I squeeze in 25 hours of computer science learning during weekdays, while still having breakfast time and evenings with family. And then there's the weekends :)