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

A Project of One’s Own

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 384 posts

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#261

Post by Tarsul »

emteycz wrote: post #213
asadlionpk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait so how do I 'not-force' my kid into programming these days? Our generation didn't have roblox, youtube and minecraft to distract us much.

Half the junior programmers I worked with during the last 10 years got into programming because of Minecraft with no other motivation at all until much later.

That's great! Minecraft was never "my" game but I was always happy that this kinda lego game was the most successful game last decade, because it's so creative. Just shows that gamers (or young people or whatever) aren't just looking for dopamine rushes.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#262

Post by snowwrestler »

opportune wrote: post #173
throwawayboise wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've hit on it, grades matter right up until you're out of school. For most people, they matter for getting a first job (because there usually isn't much else to serve as a filter). After that, nobody will ever ask for or look at them again.

Most of the high paying professions outside of software require the degree and that first job to break into them. Sure for banking and consulting it’s not a hard requirement, but it’s much harder to get into them with bad grades or a degree from a non-target school. It’s really only in the software bubble where people are able to prove themselves to break into it, due to various factors including engineers being in v…

The reason software is different is simply that it is a recently developed industry.

If you look back, all industries start this way. The most heavily-credentialed and tightly-regulated field you can think of today started off as a bunch of hustlers making it up as they went along.

It didn’t last for those other industries and it likely won’t last for software.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#263

Post by nostromo »

jdmoreira wrote: post #216
opportune wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even those that do benefit greatly from the pedigrees that academic achievement opens up (going to top colleges, working at desirable employers, although grades matter little there unless you’re right out of college). For everyone else grades are still used for trackin…

Grades don't matter. They matter if you really want to follow the beaten path. Sure, go ahead... join McKinsey or something like that. Being good a learning matters. Being good at executing matters. Being good at communicating matters. Being good at leading matters. Grades and credentials are just gatekeeping invented by people that are worse than talented people. Grades are for status not for wealth and even much le…

Grades correlate with learning ability, executive function, and communication skills.

Good grades aren't the goal. Good grades are an indicator other people can use to gauge your preparedness for a job or opportunity.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#264

Post by [deleted] »

opportune wrote: post #173
throwawayboise wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've hit on it, grades matter right up until you're out of school. For most people, they matter for getting a first job (because there usually isn't much else to serve as a filter). After that, nobody will ever ask for or look at them again.

Most of the high paying professions outside of software require the degree and that first job to break into them. Sure for banking and consulting it’s not a hard requirement, but it’s much harder to get into them with bad grades or a degree from a non-target school. It’s really only in the software bubble where people are able to prove themselves to break into it, due to various factors including engineers being in v…

[deleted]

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#265

Post by [deleted] »

jdmoreira wrote: post #216
opportune wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even those that do benefit greatly from the pedigrees that academic achievement opens up (going to top colleges, working at desirable employers, although grades matter little there unless you’re right out of college). For everyone else grades are still used for trackin…

Grades don't matter. They matter if you really want to follow the beaten path. Sure, go ahead... join McKinsey or something like that. Being good a learning matters. Being good at executing matters. Being good at communicating matters. Being good at leading matters. Grades and credentials are just gatekeeping invented by people that are worse than talented people. Grades are for status not for wealth and even much le…

[deleted]

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#266

Post by scooble »

throwawayboise wrote: post #161
opportune wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grades still matter for the vast majority of people who aren’t born into mega rich families. Most people don’t become Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and even those that do benefit greatly from the pedigrees that academic achievement opens up (going to top colleges, working at desirable employers, although grades matter little there unless you’re right out of college). For everyone else grades are still used for trackin…

You've hit on it, grades matter right up until you're out of school. For most people, they matter for getting a first job (because there usually isn't much else to serve as a filter). After that, nobody will ever ask for or look at them again.

I agree, but there can be some exceptions. I got auto-rejected when applying for a law conversion course because of my A Level grades. I have a first class degree, a master’s degree with distinction and a phd.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#267

Post by Tarsul »

ankitg12 wrote: post #168
caseyross wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children want to learn from "real" work, not the fake work of school, which is why so many of them can't sit still in class, and get poor grades despite being smart, etc. Furthermore, you could argue that not paying attention to more abstract lessons is actually way more rational of a decision than sitting straight and taking notes. The human brain is expensive to run, and our ancestors didn't survive by squanderin…

So much right. Children do pay attention and many times get glued to the thing they see we adults really value. Since for most of the families formal education is not the thing their world revolves around (except people in university jobs/professors), children don't gel as well with the books, as they do with other things we value (for example, our phones or TV).

That's an intriguing point. I always thought children of professors/teachers would be better in school because their parents would push them (gently!) in that direction (and because they are probably genetically inclined to be good learners...), but this type of indirect watching of their parents and what they value must have quite a big impact as well (also in that the parents are natural role models). My parents had quite a hands-off approach (they're not teachers, as you might have guessed ;)) and I subsequently didn't care much about my grades or certain school subjects that I found uninteresting.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#268

Post by kapilkale »

rossdavidh wrote: post #41

Jared Diamond, in his book "The Day Before Yesterday", talks about how children in Papua New Guinea when he was an anthropologist there would play at making a garden or raising pigs. The kid would have a toy, wooden pig, and then eventually be given a piglet, and then gradually their "play" would become more realistic until it shaded into adult work. My daughter, as a youngun', wanted to play "coffeeshop" where she w…

book is called "the world until yesterday"

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#269

Post by convolvatron »

EarthLaunch wrote: post #207
convolvatron wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree about the sidenote. go for it. get as far as you can.

I'm curious, why push through on a fun personal project into causing burnout? Asking for...a friend.

I guess I have a different theory of burnout. to me it happens when I can't connect the dots anymore. its not because I worked too hard. company found a vertical and how I spend all my time trying to fix 'bugs' that are really because the product is being mis-applied. most of the senior team left and its clear that we aren't going to be taking on any other work than cleaning up. sales are flagging and its clear that the whole narrative was corrupt to begin with.

the only projects I can remember, paid or not, are the ones that took up a huge fraction of my output and really did something cool. do that. shoot big. make something really different.

don't turn programming into sitting at the end of an queue, picking up random things and gamifying retiring them as fast you can. you have a chisel. make a sculpture.

Re: A Project of One’s Own

#270

Post by mixmastamyk »

idiotsecant wrote: post #184
asadlionpk wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait so how do I 'not-force' my kid into programming these days? Our generation didn't have roblox, youtube and minecraft to distract us much.

Boredom is the mother of curiosity. Take away the dopamine factories and let your kid be bored enough to be interested in learning things.

Indeed. Youtube is in short supply at our house, and not only as a result of the advertising, surveillance, and addiction factors.
Post reply on HN