Earlier quoted context omitted.
raw experience
Having a good grasp on time vs space complexity helps.
space is cheaper
Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
71–80 of 290 posts
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#72Pay attention to who was the lead dev on the code you are using. When you see that you are using 2+ (sometimes 5+, rarely 10+) projects from the same person, then you've found a master. Start looking closely at what they are doing, what they are reading, what they are saying on their blog, twitter, etc. I think of Linus, Lars, Anders, TJ, Rich, etc
Can you add the last names? Some these are difficult to tell who you are referring to.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#73Pay attention to who was the lead dev on the code you are using. When you see that you are using 2+ (sometimes 5+, rarely 10+) projects from the same person, then you've found a master. Start looking closely at what they are doing, what they are reading, what they are saying on their blog, twitter, etc. I think of Linus, Lars, Anders, TJ, Rich, etc
I fail to decrypt who TJ can be
TJ Holowaychuk, who has written some of the most popular Node.js libraries. Express.js is probably the one most have heard of. He now operates in the Go space in which I presume he also has some influence as well for OP to bother mentioning. I would say that his handiwork in crafting good libraries was a significant reason that Node took off like it did so quickly.
This article from 2014 highlights just how many libraries he has written and how good he as at writing them: https://medium.com/@kelas/how-is-tj-holowaychuk-so-insanely-...
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#74The code you don't write is more important than the code you do write.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#75Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#76Fabrice Bellard, the mind behind FFMpeg and QEMU.
He is one of 3 people that came to mind immediately reading this post. One of his latest creations, QuickJS, is quite remarkable. The other two I thought of are Peter Norton and Linus Torvalds. Fabrice, despite his tremendous contributions to the field, doesn't reach for acclaim and just seems to go his own way. Peter Norton was a genius in his field. His book on Assembly Language was one of my favorites as a youth.…
>Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic.
Ha! Would you consider Musk also as a Lunatic? :-)
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#77[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#78I don't think there is mastery in this work. I've been doing this for decades, and I still think my code from 6 months ago is crap, no matter how much I learn and improve. Mastery would imply that you can do it all, and do it right, on any project, and there is just too much change and evolution for that to ever be true. My goal is simply that I continue to improve.
> I don't think there is mastery in this work.
I take it one step further, I don't believe mastery exists, or rather we don't have a consistency on what mastery 'is'.
I prefer the saying something along the lines of "expertise* just means you get in more trouble when you do it wrong"
* Expertise is replaced with 'black belt' for martial art expertise
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#79I don't think there is mastery in this work. I've been doing this for decades, and I still think my code from 6 months ago is crap, no matter how much I learn and improve. Mastery would imply that you can do it all, and do it right, on any project, and there is just too much change and evolution for that to ever be true. My goal is simply that I continue to improve.
codingdave, I think you really hit on exactly the right point, and in doing so have also spoken to my mind exactly where we've gone off the rails as an industry in our hiring practice.
When we interview people, we do so in such a way that we believe someone is capable of showing mastery of the field, where those who have been in the field a long time and agree with your philosophy here know that about all we can can hope to achieve is humility.
It also feels like this fundamental to why this field has not been able to mature to a point of being a profession in the same form as other fields - because while we can teach a lawyer the law and we can teach a doctor a particular way to perform a technique, software is all just a bit wet and sticky.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#80It’s fiction. No one is a master. There’s always stuff to learn.
Competence is a better term. What it looks like is being able to make things happen quickly with minimal errors or problems.
Unless you’re talking about the most extreme cases ..... Fabrice Bellard and John Carmack .... genius developers who are true masters. There are few of these.