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Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

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Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#201

Post by pdhborges »

sidpatil wrote: post #119
stncls wrote: post #93

If you deal with computationally hard problems, I think there's a whole toolbox of utilities with unbelievable performance, in which millions of PhD-holder-hours have been poured, but that get ignored more often than not. - SAT modeling languages & SAT solvers - same for SMT (satisfiability modulo theories) - Constraint programming - MIP (mixed-integer programming) and its special cases, like - TSP (traveling salesma…

Mathematical programming (LP, (M)IP, etc.) feel like superpowers to me. Working with them also helped me realize that many optimization problems are actually just closely-related variations of the same problem.

Maybe because Linear Programming is P-Complete.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#202

Post by ZeroCool2u »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #198

> * Regular expressions > * Parser combinators > * Parser generators I sometimes forget how I take regexes for granted, and how some people don't know them. I would replace the combinator/generator stuff with "how to cleanly make a hand-written parser." Developers frequently stumble through that quite badly.

I'm actually just about to run into making a somewhat complex parser and haven't done it since school.

Any recommendations resources you'd recommend as a refresher?

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#203

Post by SamReidHughes »

giantg2 wrote: post #199
SamReidHughes wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a snarky comment, it's literally, not actually basic logic. You had no factual basis for saying it was. Basic logic is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_logic Dynamical systems has stuff that is not basic logic such as this topological concept which is applicable in understanding how stuff works without doing an actual calculation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_cycle That's calculus. Not…

You misunderstand. This is the basic logic I was talking about. Note my comment mentioned philosophy. Same for limit cycles - they make no mention or this type of calculation. The concept can exist in other domains such as systems thinking. So concepts do exist outside the context of pure math. If you look at everything from a hard math perspective, then that is what you will see. You have to look at the context of t…

Limit cycles are a concrete example of "analysis of stability, classification of fixed point types, topological limits to what small changes to the system can do to the behavior."

This is calculus, not logic, not philosophy.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#204

Post by maccard »

breckenedge wrote: post #126
kqr wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not only about features that go unused, but also features that are used but only in support of workflows that improves nobody's life. Or functionality that's used but is a wildly inefficient version of what could have been.

I’m curious about what you’d consider concrete examples of these inefficient solutions? The biggest thing that comes to my mind are SPAs that don’t need to be SPAs.

> The biggest thing that comes to my mind are SPAs that don’t need to be SPAs.

These are unlikely to be technical issues, and more people/process issues. SPAs are popular because they optimsie for developer productivity (so arguably the opposite). Others have talked about them, but examples like focusing on the wrong problems to solve (if you're a startup making a video game, do you really need to build your own chat app? [0])

[0] https://nira.com/slack-history/

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#205

Post by mym1990 »

alangibson wrote: post #190

- Finish at least as much as you start. - Focus like a maniac on tasks that generate value. Busyness has nothing to do with productivity. - Agressively reduce all coordination overhead (emails, meetings, etc)

Not sure I agree with business not having anything to do with productivity. The best businesses are able to get ahead by being able to produce more or better quality products through higher productivity, which keeps those businesses competitive with the rest of the market.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#206

Post by mountainriver »

replyifuagree wrote: post #96
futureshock wrote: post #21

I think the true 10x multiplier is not a technical skill at all. It is the ability to quickly cut through irrelevant tasks and actions to focus on the thing that will move the business goal forward fastest. It is enshrined in the concept of the MVP and the short iteration cycle. Quicky building something that does not solve a business problem is not productive. Work=force*displacement. No movement, no work. A closely…

This. Which isn't to say that technical knowledge doesn't matter, it truly does. But, the primary problem in the industry right now is that the majority of finished code generated by professionals goes unused. The amount of waste is staggering. Working on the right thing is way more than a 10x multiplier.

Yes! I often tell people this in interviews and they act like I don’t have enough technical knowledge. The cult of Leetcode has made this so much worse.

You rarely, if ever, need Leetcode. What you need is to understand deeply what you should be building so you don’t waste everyone’s time!

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#207

Post by [deleted] »

wittycardio wrote: post #156
exdsq wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this idea. You don’t need to be at the top 1% of a field to do cool innovate stuff, just be good at two or three different fields and see what happens when you combine them. Currently going down this rabbit hole with computational archaeology and having a whale of a time :)

This is complete bs, real innovation happens exclusively in the top 1 percent of the field. This is just coolaid that some people like to drink to de emphasize the value of real skill and inflate their own egos.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#208

Post by chasd00 »

know the tools available in your industry/field. For example, if you're working on some embedded system controlling hardware don't get out your old differential equation and linear algebra book, instead, use matlab/simulink and leverage all the work everyone else has done already.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#209

Post by copperx »

warrenm wrote: post #112
kemiller2002 wrote: post #56

There is no list. It's not possible to say, "I know these 5 things, and they'll make me more productive." Feynman solved all his physics problems with Calculus. That's it. One tool. Part of is is knowing your tools. The other part is being able to see a problem, break it down, and understand how to manipulate it into something that's attainable. That's it. I worked with this guy Pat several years ago, and he was on a…

>being able to see a problem, break it down, and understand how to manipulate it into something that's attainable Wasn't this Alexander the Great's approach: divide and conquer? Every problem gets solvable if you break it into enough pieces

> Every problem gets solvable if you break it into enough pieces

Someone needs to just sit down and break P vs NP into enough pieces.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#210

Post by sharadov »

warrenm wrote: post #99

You're way too over-focused on tech trivia in your list The biggest force multipliers what a friend described to me as a young teenager as "be an and" - don't just be a programmer, be a programmer and a lawyer Don't just be a welder, be a welder and a baker Don't just be an engineer, be an engineer and a writer Etc You may have heard Scott Adams call it a "talent stack" Same concept Be exposed to as many ideas as pos…

I completely agree, you need to be good and 2 or more areas, not necessarily an expert at each of them. The combined effect is insane, and makes you very valuable.
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