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Do the Real Thing

scotthyoung.com

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Re: Do the Real Thing

#101

Post by qznc »

zomglings wrote: post #11

Definitely agree with the article, and would like to offer a useful supplement to "doing the real thing": "watch someone very skilled do the real thing". Watching a pro can really accelerate skill acquisition because it will expose you to high quality ideas that would have been difficult to develop on your own. Want to get better at Backgammon/Chess/Go? Play a lot of games (at various time controls). Yes. But also wa…

Are there any celebrity programmers streaming? Would be interesting to watch Jeff Dean, Fabrice Bellard, or Donald Knuth code.

Re: Do the Real Thing

#102

Post by [deleted] »

zeta0134 wrote: post #88
hymnsfm wrote: post #35

Possibly an over-simplification. Take this example: I want to sight-sing hymns. I know a bit of music theory but it's been cobbled together over the past year in an haphazard fashion. I pick up a hymnal to sing the first hymn and immediately need to look up the key signature (I never memorized them). Then I see the hymn is 12/8 time and realize I only superficially covered rhythm and time signatures. I go on YouTube…

Ooh, here's a fun idea: see if you can track down a hymnal that uses shape notes, like those described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note The basic idea is to make it much easier to sight-read songs in different keys. With shape notes, the "Do" in solfege is always the same symbol, regardless of the key signature. So it'd be a "C" in C Major, but the same shape appears for an "F" in F Major. Once you can…

[deleted]

Re: Do the Real Thing

#103

Post by dt5702 »

zomglings wrote: post #80
cgb223 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who wants to get better / generally back into Chess Who/what should I watch? Where can I find good videos/analysis?

How strong are you? The St. Louis Chess Club has a great collection of Chess lectures at various levels: https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub I also like Agadmator's YouTube channel - he analyzes famous games as well as games from current tournaments and such: https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR I also like chesstempo for puzzles: https://chesstempo.com/ I'm not very strong, though, so take what I say with a…

Lichess is a superb website which combines online tournaments, game studies and tactics. It is all open source too. A great example of people coming together to create something great.

Re: Do the Real Thing

#104

Post by hunterloftis »

beachy wrote: post #9

As with all good advice, this reads well and makes sense but the devil is in the details. > Eric Barone, who went on to sell millions of copies of his game, overcame his struggles at creating art by making and remaking the art assets for his game dozens of times. To someone else, frigging around with their art assets and remaking then over and over again could be the very definition of not doing "the real thing".

Agreed. Following the article’s own advice of “ask someone who knows how your industry works” would certainly lead to “pay an artist” rather than “churn on your programmer art” if your goal is shipping a successful game.

Re: Do the Real Thing

#106

Post by normalnorm »

supersrdjan wrote: post #85
throwawaygh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I have. I think that the vagaries of SEO and the goal of promoting the author's brand/book is definitely the reason this article is several screens instead of a 3 word aphorism that we all just shrug at and move along.

How is this conclusion different than saying that, say, reading anything in any magazine is a waste of time because the magazine sells advertising space?

> How is this conclusion different than saying that, say, reading anything in any magazine is a waste of time because the magazine sells advertising space?

It is different because the business model of the magazine is to create some content that people enjoy, so that they will tolerate the ads that come with it.

Here, the content itself is an ad in disguise. That is the business model of SEO, "content marketing" etc, and this is why it keeps flooding the web with mediocrity.

Re: Do the Real Thing

#110

Post by julianeon »

zomglings wrote: post #11

Definitely agree with the article, and would like to offer a useful supplement to "doing the real thing": "watch someone very skilled do the real thing". Watching a pro can really accelerate skill acquisition because it will expose you to high quality ideas that would have been difficult to develop on your own. Want to get better at Backgammon/Chess/Go? Play a lot of games (at various time controls). Yes. But also wa…

Actually chess is a pretty good counterexample, speaking as a guy who 'did the real thing' and just started playing chess.

I ended up with a ranking of about 1600, give or take a hundred points.

The thing was, that was my ceiling: I wasn't going to advance beyond that. Whatever I could've figured out on the fly was built into my ranking.

So, to advance, I would've needed to, flatly, learn: put down the pieces and pick up a book.

Eventually, I think you reach a point where you have to do that, if you want to get better. "Doing the thing" is great for getting you out of the 'rank amateur' stage, but it can be a hindrance further down the line.

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