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Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

theguardian.com

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Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#11

Post by B0btheBuilder »

antonvs wrote: post #9

This is projection by people who are untrained in what they do. Competent people with good training in some discipline are able to apply that training to competently achieve goals. This allows them to apply knowledge that they didn't develop themselves by trial and error, and is much more efficient, with better outcomes than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule. A…

Even competent people with good training aren't perfect. Competent people make mistakes. You mention bridges, buildings, and ships, all projects built by massive teams of people and stringent processes. These massive teams of people and stringent processes are necessary exactly because people aren't perfect. I'm unclear what you mean by the article focusing on "untrained people", unless you're trying to claim that politicians and newspaper executives are untrained.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#13

Post by ardit33 »

And that is not true at all, especially in sports.

When you just starting playing a new sport, you are still learning and going along while making a lot of mistakes.

After few years of playing you learn enough (by experience or training), to know what to do and how to act. (think shooting dribling, positioning in soccer).

If you played your 'younger' self, you'd run circle around that person. Hence training and experience matters a lot.

Same with engineering. While products change, some of the same patterns and problems keep repeating over and over, and after few years of work you know how to deal with them, avoid common pitfalls, etc....

So, people are truly "winging it" only when they are thrown to new situations/discipline, but both experience and deliberate training gets you to a level when you can anticipate events to a certain degree, and be proactive towards them. That's not "just winging" anymore.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#15

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

ardit33 wrote: post #13

And that is not true at all, especially in sports. When you just starting playing a new sport, you are still learning and going along while making a lot of mistakes. After few years of playing you learn enough (by experience or training), to know what to do and how to act. (think shooting dribling, positioning in soccer). If you played your 'younger' self, you'd run circle around that person. Hence training and exper…

If one constrains themselves to arenas where there's a level of finite class of situations one might encounter, you're right.

Venture outside the comfortable and it's back to winging it, though with more proficiency and intuition, maybe.

Everything is a skill, including winging it.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#17

Post by trendia »

daveguy wrote: post #7
dajonker wrote: post #2

As I remember from an HR course at business school, studies have shown that experience is one of the worst indicators for job performance (when hiring someone; all else being equal).

I'd have to see that study. It seems to me that experience gives you a lot of information about what is not as important that comes in handy even when you are "winging it" with something related. Also, "experience is one of the worst indicators for job performance...all else being equal" could mean a lot of things: 1) truly everything else being equal i.e. the person with less experience will do better. (surely that…

> In programming specifically, many studies have shown order of magnitude differences in the quality of the programs written, the sizes of the programs written, and the productivity of the programmers. The original study that showed huge variations in individual programming productivity was conducted in the late 1960s by Sackman, Erikson, and Grant (1968). They studied professional programmers with an average of 7 years' experience and found that the ratio of intitial coding time between the best and worst programmers was about 20:1; the ratio of debugging times over 25:1; of program sizes 5:1; and of program execution speed about 10:1. They found no relationship between a programmer's amount of experience and code quality or productivity. (Code Complete, page 548)

https://blog.codinghorror.com/skill-disparities-in-programmi...

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#18

Post by bksenior »

antonvs wrote: post #9

This is projection by people who are untrained in what they do. Competent people with good training in some discipline are able to apply that training to competently achieve goals. This allows them to apply knowledge that they didn't develop themselves by trial and error, and is much more efficient, with better outcomes than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule. A…

Leeches used to be common medical training, Penicillin was literally created by a pro who went against his training. Training is often helpful for pattern mataching, but make no mistakes, your doctor can kill you and your teachers can mislead. Everyone is faking it.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#19

Post by nharada »

bksenior wrote: post #18
antonvs wrote: post #9

This is projection by people who are untrained in what they do. Competent people with good training in some discipline are able to apply that training to competently achieve goals. This allows them to apply knowledge that they didn't develop themselves by trial and error, and is much more efficient, with better outcomes than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule. A…

Leeches used to be common medical training, Penicillin was literally created by a pro who went against his training. Training is often helpful for pattern mataching, but make no mistakes, your doctor can kill you and your teachers can mislead. Everyone is faking it.

There's a difference between "faking it" and "trying your best but making mistakes". Trained pilots still crash airplanes, but I'm not getting on a plane flown by some random passenger.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#20

Post by johnjohnsmith »

antonvs wrote: post #9

This is projection by people who are untrained in what they do. Competent people with good training in some discipline are able to apply that training to competently achieve goals. This allows them to apply knowledge that they didn't develop themselves by trial and error, and is much more efficient, with better outcomes than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule. A…

I'd like to offer a few decades of perspective on your claim.

I've been programming for 30+ years. When I sit down to code, most of the time I've thought through it before even typing and am ~99% confident I won't hit a roadblock. I've spent half my life mastering my programming skills.

BUT: I'm a high-level technical lead / product lead, so I only get to write code a few times a month and it is more for stress-release because I've mastered it (and because I am a mentor to / lead 30+ programmers and this gives me a chance to interact with them).

If I wrote code 100% of the time I'd being winging it 1% of the time. So in this regard you are correct.

However, because of how corporations work, once you've demonstrated proficiency at "junior level work" you move up to the next big challenge. Yes, that sounds pejorative, but coding is not hard compared to the next levels of competency: programming is junior level, software architecture is senior level, product roadmap is staff level, corporate direction is above that. Sorry if that hurts your butt, but knowing the latest JS framework or how to optimize your C++ is trench-work compared to convincing the CTO where your division should invest its R&D budget for the next 5 years.

Because there is no "school" for learning how to plan your company roadmap, you really do have to wing it and learn from experience. And since shit is changing so fast... well, sure there are basic principles studied is business (that sometimes are useless for strategy but are good for tactics)... but in tech, it very much is "wtf is going to happen next and is this the right choice." Sure there is an executive board, and vice presidents gunning for your role, but you REALLY are winging it at C-level unless you are in your 70's and have helmed multiple large companies.

So from a top's down view from higher-importance positions, winging it is simply part of the job.

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