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Ask HN: How HN improved your life?

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Re: Ask HN: How HN improved your life?

#11
post #10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just throwing up a lot of crap and seeing what sticks doesn't generally work for me. To me, that's the slowest, most painful way to figure out what works. Studying the successes of others is my preferred route. This particular idea is kind of newly born, so probably best to let it incubate a bit anyway. And, as I said, I have not slept well this week. Posting with a clear head generally gets better results.

Obviously, not sleeping isn't the greatest way to have your best thoughts. I understand that. However, I think you're missing out on a huge upside. You are judged by your best works not your failures. The problem with studying the success of others is that you're not doing anything. I would know, I spent 2 years doing it and had nothing to show for it. When I say throw up a lot of crap, what I really mean is throw up…

Oh, I actually do plenty of that or I wouldn't still be posting here. I'm a woman and very open about that. Women sometimes comment here that it's a tough environment for a woman. And it can be. But it's also a growth experience. If I get badly downvoted or something, I wonder why, I wonder what I can do differently, rather than just feeling burned and going away to lick my wounds.

In this case, I really think my impetus to immediately post and start asking questions is probably a bad one, a premature impetus. It will be better for me to do some of the legwork before posting and requesting feedback. I'm not a patient person. :-) So I don't really want to wait. But I think it is best, not just because I am not in a good place mentally today but for other reasons as well.

Re: Ask HN: How HN improved your life?

#12
Thanks to HN, I found out that only my persistence and creativity is the limit regarding my software development career. Being a corporate software drone is not the only viable way of having a decent life.

Re: Ask HN: How HN improved your life?

#16
It has made me more aware of my own ability. It is really easy to see yourself as better than you are when your peers aren't expert, but on Hacker News I don't have that problem as so many of you are above me. This helps me to keep improving.

It has also exposed me to concepts that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. For example, I was introduced to Lisp through Clojure in part through this site. This exposure to other ideas is pretty awesome, since it helps me get a more nuanced picture of the tech world. In my C++ class I have a teacher who preaches object oriented programming as the most revolutionary idea since the wheel (which you can model with object oriented programming..) while online I'm exposed to the many advocates of functional and even event driven programming. I could give more examples.

I think some people might find these things to be inconsequential. I mean, it isn't getting a job or a wife. However, these little things are constantly adding up to more intelligent decisions which are leading to other wise choices. I think it qualifies.

I think that I can safely say that Hacker News has made me a slightly wiser person.

Oh, and god willing I'll be able to get an internship through contacts on Hacker News. Wish me luck. =)

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