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Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

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Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#71

Post by codeduck »

jawns wrote: post #28

Dunning-Kruger separating mid- and senior-level devs: JUNIOR DEV: My code is simple and easy to understand. MID-LEVEL DEV: My code is subtle, clever, innovative, expressive, hyper-optimized, and ingenious. SENIOR DEV: My code is simple and easy to understand. -- Source: John Arundel, https://twitter.com/bitfield/status/1219174978748370945 But take that for what it's worth: https://twitter.com/bitfield/status/11847410…

We coined a title "señor Dev" for people who came in saying they were seniors but who's contribution was net negative over time.

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#72

Post by AstralStorm »

skellera wrote: post #40
professionalguy wrote: post #32

In data engineering, I think your responses to the 'entity resolution' problem are a good Dunning Kurger style litmus test. If you don't know, entity resolution is the process of matching unique rows in two or more databases. Are these the same movies? Are these the same person? Novice DE: Oh easy, just merge on the name. Intermediate DE: OH GOD NO. Expert DE: That's complicated, but I have a plan.

Just curious, is there a standard way to start attacking that problem?

You always need some sort of data normalization scheme, and one that makes sense for the task you're running.

(This including things such as Unicode normalization and looking at other fields to determine if it's the same thing.)

And you get to handle duplicates too.

That is just the start, problem gets even more interesting in a real sharded scenario because eventual consistency is hard.

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#74

Post by AstralStorm »

cjslep wrote: post #43
elil17 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point as a whole stands, but I think even saying “we don’t have data” misrepresents the situation. We have strong theoretical reasons, from our understandings of physics and biology, to believe that there will be no harmful effects. An expert would reasonably say to someone, either a layman or another expert, “5G is safe.”

I disagree: saying "we don't have data" [0] doesn't say anything about the existence or lack of existence of underlying models. Models are refined all the time to account for exceptions and transitions shown in empirical measurements (Mercury's orbit, deflection of light & general relativity, for example). The tetrahertz range is especially interesting precisely because it is an unknown between known non-ionizing and…

Precautionary principle notwithstanding, this is framing the question wrong. The proper question to ask is: is it safer than microwave transmission at low doses like used in phones and wifi. Those are already absolutely known to be unsafe. Just extremely mildly. (Likely not even carcinogenic given historical population incidence data.

Current evidence suggests similar impact for similar power high frequency transmitters.)

Policy questions are not somewhere we can afford ignorance and black and white thinking. Precautionary principle is only good if you're not stopping a better and safer solution with it for sake of conservatism.

See, 5G is not just washing everyone with radiation, it comes with widespread beamforming, which is likely to send lower energy through anything obstructing it. Skin effect prevents getting penetrated with the waves at low energy used in communications.

Those are extremely strong arguments and the onus is really in anyone that says it's unsafe to actually show it is, properly and without doubt.

Otherwise it's plain scaremongering to suggest "we don't know" when the consensus is "it's safe". Exactly the same tactic as used by some climate denialists.

Sample study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997488/ (Read all the links to see the whole story. And these scientists used a rather high energy level compared to expected. The current analyses suggest the studies - which mostly show effects - inadequate. There's a strong bias towards publishing an evidence of effect when there's none. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6765906/ )

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#75

Post by EnderMB »

mlady wrote: post #27

In grappling (Brazilian jiu-jitsu), it is very apparent from one sparring round with a person to get a sense for what they know and get a general idea for their skill/belt level. The exact belt is determined by that person's coach by measuring their skill against their personal potential. An analogy to software would be to pair program with a person. You both get a feel for each other's strengths and weaknesses while…

While I largely agree, one similarity I see to software engineering is that a beginner (i.e. a day one white belt vs a fresh grad) can work with a purple belt or a senior-level developer and be amazed at the gap of knowledge, when in reality that person might look at their superior and be wondering the same thing. There are levels to the game, and ultimately you don't know what you don't know.

One of the reasons I like BJJ is because it's hard. There is no substitute for time on the mats, in the same way that you cannot become a good software engineer by simply graduating from a top-tier university or by reading every book on the subject.

I don't want to take anything away from your comment, because it's absolutely right. It's just a nice lesson to consider that you can perceive something, and it not being the case.

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#76

Post by Tainnor »

jakevoytko wrote: post #9

In software engineering, I think "unconditional faith in a single technique or technology" is a good sign of overconfidence in one's knowledge or ability. This certainly applied to me when I was younger. Engineers who go all-in on a specific technique will have really inconsistent results: some projects will go amazing because the technique was the best option. Some projects won't go so great because the technique wa…

agreed. now, I am personally biased for or against certain technologies, but I would still say that (even though I might not like it) something like PHP probably has its perfect use cases...

when I've interviewed people, I made sure to ask questions like "what do you like/dislike about language/technology/technique X" and a lot of people really seem to struggle with that kind of question

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#77

Post by AstralStorm »

BubRoss wrote: post #65
cjslep wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Studies have repeatedly shown non-ionizing radiation has no long term health effects. As material science closes the tetrahertz gap, the longitudinal studies, by their very definition, take time to complete (longitudinal studies = exposing animals or individuals at lower doses for much longer periods of times). It's natural for an undisciplined mind to assume they're also non-ionizing. But it is a mark of a disciplin…

Do you think that light bulbs cause cancer? They emit higher frequency radiation than 5G.

They can cause skin cancer if they emit UV. That one is rather obvious, so most light emitters are made to not emit UV light.

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#78

Post by AstralStorm »

BubRoss wrote: post #66
cjslep wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, such people who do know would clearly understand my comments are around the allocations of 5G in the tetrahertz range, where the gap is shrinking, instead of uncharitably mischaracterizing my statements in the worst possible light (5G allocations elsewhere in the spectrum).

If you mean terahertz, 5G is supposed to top out around 85ghz. Also terahertz range is the start of infrared light. If you think that is dangerous, you might not want to sit too close to a campfire.

Well, microwaves are dangerous too, enough of them will cook you.

At higher frequencies, the effects get more and more surface level though.

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#79

Post by Tainnor »

TheOperator wrote: post #70
latencyloser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on what opinion they pull out, I might tweak that and suggest: "What's the argument against that opinion?" From what I've seen, a lot of people can rattle off reasons they've heard for why a particular thing is done, but have not deeply considered the opposite side of that opinion and what its benefits may be. Ymmv.

This smacks as unreliable to me because I have a "Devils advocate" sort of mindset REGARDLESS of my actual level of expertise. I find the issue with this sort of mindset is that it makes you better at tearing down other peoples opinions than it does at coming up with a brilliant opinion of your own. This is problematic when you're trying to do something innovative in a crowded saturated field.

I have the same attitude, and it's good to try to counteract it a bit, but I have found that this attitude can be a great asset when paired with other people who are a bit more on the optimistic side; as long as both parties are willing to listen to each other.

Re: Ask HN: What would the Dunning-Kruger “test” be for your field?

#80

Post by Tainnor »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #51
patrickmay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite interview questions is "What is your favorite programming language and what would you change about it if you could?" Any answer along the lines of "I wouldn't really change anything." shows a lack of either experience or willingness to think about your tools.

Or it could be a sign of pragmatism, or having the freedom to choose your tools. Why wish your tool changed instead of focusing on using it, or something better suited, to produce things?

Because every tool has limitations, and even if you think your tool can't/shouldn't necessarily be changed you still need to be aware of its gotchas to use it effectively.
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