Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

pindancing.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 89 posts

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#71

Post by wsxcde »

devxpy wrote: post #18

The most relatable piece of this article, as a college kid in Bangalore, is this > For some reason Bangalore is crawling with people who first want to form a community and then start learning/working/whatever. These efforts almost invariably peter out uselessly. First do the work. Then if you feel like "communing" talk to others who are also working hard.

As someone below noted, there's nothing Bangalore-specific about this. This is coming from a native Bangalorean who moved away about eight years ago.

It's just human nature to want to sit around and chat rather than actually spend hours of your time on hard work which may or may not pan out into something useful.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#72

Post by gameswithgo »

phaus wrote: post #40
felipemnoa wrote: post #12

This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…

> All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. On the whole, I agree with his sentiment that hard work will get you success, but the idea he magically started out with some kind of innate talent for telling whether or not things are good is the same type of illogical thinking he's talking about being discouraging to beginners.

Talent is a real thing, it isn't magic. Each of us has a unique brain with unique programming/experience and some of us are more or less capable at various tasks. When I type stuff like this out I start to wonder why this has to be explained.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#73

Post by Sean1708 »

koolba wrote: post #20
mgamache wrote: post #7

I am being pedantic, but I hate the word mentee. I am not sure if it was made up, but it sounds like it. The proper word IMHO is protege.

It’s not the same thing. A protege is one person done your are grooming to be your replacement. A mentee is one of many people your are guiding down their own path.

This was always my understanding of the word too, but I've just looked it up and apparently a protégé is just "one who is protected or trained or whose career is furthered by a person of experience, prominence, or influence" so in a mentor-student relationship the student could definitely be referred to as a protégé.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#74

Post by Waterluvian »

yurishimo wrote: post #31
Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that perspective. To add to it, from personal experience: it really helps to be totally, wildly, embarrassingly ignorant of your incompetence at the start. It softens that part where your work disappoints you, because you don't know better. Now, I don't know if this is actually good advice or even actionable, advice, but I've seen it and experienced it many times and it very much enabled me to move past awfuln…

Your guitar story reminded me of my one of my own. My uncle gave me an old crappy guitar for Christmas while they were driving through to visit other relatives. He was a signed musician at the time so he had all sorts of extra instruments laying around that companies would send him just because. Later that next year for my birthday (today actually, but a few years ago!), my family gave me one of those "Learn Guitar"…

I've got young kids and I am the captain now. I am guitaring again. They love it and can't possibly judge my horrible rendition of Wheels on the Bus.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#75

Post by sxv »

felipemnoa wrote: post #12

This is nice but I like this advice much better: Ira Glass quote: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is st…

This is nice but I don't see how it is relevant to the article: "Here's some advice about mentorship." -- "Here is better unrelated advice!"

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#76

Post by radcon »

> So in the next email (sent a minute after I received his reply) I sent him a zipped file of code with an explanation that "this is what I've done so far which is about 70% of what you want" and he immediately replied saying "Whoa you are serious. That is refreshing .. '

> So a few days later, I sent along a detailed algorithm that expanded his idea, with a formal proof of correctness and a code implementation and he suddenly switched to a more expansive mode, sending friendly emails with long and detailed corrections and ideas for me to explore.

And then the whole internet stood up and clapped.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#77

Post by taeric »

timoth3y wrote: post #62
taeric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The double speak in your last paragraph undercut your post. :( Be bold and make a claim. Nothing wrong with that. Even if you are wrong, you will be so with skin in the game, so come out knowing. With couched claims, you can always duck behind being right, but not understood. And never know.

> The double speak in your last paragraph undercut your post. :( It's honestly not double-speak. I'm a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist. Words are defined by how people use them. I consider it a waste of time to complain that "everyone is using a word wrong" as long as the meaning is clear, which it is in this case.

The double speak is the claiming of not claiming it is good or bad.

Words can change. True. Calling the change of some words as important is an opinion. Clearly label in some words imparts a value judgement. To claim otherwise is to try and shift the claim to the receiver. "I'm not claiming it is good or bad, but look at the evidence."

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#78

Post by taeric »

soneca wrote: post #38
taeric wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The double speak in your last paragraph undercut your post. :( Be bold and make a claim. Nothing wrong with that. Even if you are wrong, you will be so with skin in the game, so come out knowing. With couched claims, you can always duck behind being right, but not understood. And never know.

Or they are not certain if it is good or bad

In unsolicited opinions, that is rather unlikely.

Re: The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no (2010)

#79

Post by esmi »

michaelt wrote: post #67
wolco wrote: post #17

Offering money or something can go a long way.

IDK about the money angle. I mean, how's a student going to pay the hourly rate of an average mid-career FAANG employee - to say nothing of a CEO, VC or famous coder?

Mid-career FAANG employee, I guess it might be ~$100/hr for a one time code review. (Incidentally, About the same rate as getting a chess GM to review your game [1]) Someone might do that if the project wasn’t too large. (Although their employment contract might not allow it.) Not cheap but maybe not totally out of reach either. Pretty questionable how useful it would be, IMHO.

[1]. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/3hgoip/typical_coach...

Post reply on HN