For me it's got to be learning some basic command line tools, and how to link them. One commonly used operational tool on my team is a simple chain of command line commands (curl, into jq, back into curl), and it has saved every member of my team countless hours of manually clicking buttons in a third-party web-ui. I threw it together in 5 minutes.
Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
301–310 of 424 posts
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#302- Writing as form of (or tool for) thinking; Leslie Lamport said (maybe quoting someone) that if you're thinking, but not writing, you only think that you're thinking; - High tolerance for feeling ignorant, confused, silly, inadequate, a novice: none of these states should phase you: you should not have a comfort zone: let your mind feel at ease in not understanding something: go to the eye of the storm and weather i…
> High tolerance for feeling ignorant, confused, silly, inadequate, a novice: none of these states should phase you: you should not have a comfort zone: let your mind feel at ease in not understanding something: go to the eye of the storm and weather it: you'll come out being more capable; I’d love to be more at ease on uncomfortable situations. Any tips?
Learn a new language! Be fearless when speaking it even when you know you're wrong. The results are humbling often hilarious and get you accustomed to frequent failure. This is also a good approach for people who are socially awkward or want practice just speaking to people. There are literally millions of people interested in doing "language exchange" sessions, where you do x minutes in your native tongue in exchange for x minutes in their native tongue. Not only will you learn a new language, but asking questions about idiom you do not understand is amazing practice for "anything" you don't understand.
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's actually not so bad. Physicists in the 20's reinvented matrix math.
Interesting? What would be a good reference on this?
I most recently encountered this fact in The Man from the Future, a recent biography about John von Neumann. (The first half of it, the first 5 or 6 chapters were good, but it goes off the rails after that.)
I think by "physicists" I should have said, Heisenberg. I'm talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_mechanics#Heisenberg's_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenberg's_entryway_to_matri...
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#304Some less mathematical / core CS and more cloud / system engineering: - Exponential backoff - Jitter - Consistent hashing - Gossip algorithm - Basic “Functional” aspects of a language (map, flatMap, reduce, filter, some, find) - Putting things in a queue and using a “serverless” consumer But some of the more day to day productivity boosters: know your development tools (including all keyboard shortcuts, including mul…
>But some of the more day to day productivity boosters: know your development tools (including all keyboard shortcuts, including multi line editing, refactoring, grow shrink AST based selection, know all git / bash commands without googling…)
Basic skills like this should be at the top of the list, including fast typing, using all available keyboard shortcuts, avoiding using the mouse but nevertheless being fast and accurate with it when required.
The amount of time people spend typing and using the mouse dwarfs any other time investment and if you improve your speed with these basic skills, the productivity multiplier can be enormous.
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#305Being able to walk into a machine shop and make a part, right then and there.
General machining skills are excellent and they're being lost thanks to the shift to a CAD-based workflow.
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#306- Learn to code. (not everyone here codes)
- Once you learn how to code, learn how to automate. Design everything you can to be declarative.
- Learn how to speak and write well.
- Learn how to negotiate and influence people (read the "classics", eg "Never Split the Difference...", "How to Win Friends...", and so on.)
- Work to increase your EQ/Emotional Intelligence.
(Yes, these are all actually productivity multipliers.)
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#307Use Vimium: https://vimium.github.io/
In other words, use the keyboard as much as possible. Simple but its 2x'ed by productivity
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#308The ability to type 30+ WPM. This is a pretty low bar to cross.
About half the people I have worked with when faced with the task of writing a 40 character line of code will do something like find a similar line and copy and paste it, and then change a character or 2, and then go find a 6 character variable that they need to type and instead of just typing the 6 characters, they highlight another copy of the variable with the mouse and then copy and paste the 6 characters. The whole thing is really frustrating to watch when you're pair programming with them. I'd be surprised if they're getting more than 10 WPM through all of this. It's got to be a huge mental burden for them as well; I mean, getting a few characters on the screen shouldn't be a mental exercise, you shouldn't be thinking about where you can find a similar line you can copy/paste, and you shouldn't be thinking about where else you can copy/paste variable names from. Getting a line of code onto the screen shouldn't be a creative endeavor.
I know being able to type 100 WPM isn't a great advantage when programming, but a minimum of typing skills, a mere 20 or 30 WPM, is important.
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Looks like a paywall. That's odd. It loads up just fine for me with no paywall. Check this out for more: https://allusesof.com/math/51-amazing-uses-of-calculus-in-re... The point is that calculus is used to solve all sorts of problems. Sure, you can say "...not in my experience" but that's one experience and not representative. You just happen to a) not work in a realm where Calculus is used and/or b) work within t…
I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying that it isn't commonly used. Objectively, a great majority of people can live their lives without even thinking about or performing calculus outside of the classroom. That is why I questioned whether knowing calculus is really a piece of fundamental knowledge that allows a 10x performance increase. For the majority of people it's not going to help them. Even if they deal wi…
> Objectively, a great majority of people can live their lives without even thinking about or performing calculus
OK no argument there. The OP statement was "For example ... Calculus for solving all sorts of problems" so it appeared you were taking issue with the idea that Calculus can be used to solve all sorts of problems. Your argument is clearer now: even if Calculus can be used to solve all sorts of problems that doesn't mean that it is "fundamental knowledge" for most people.
Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?
#310- Learn to code. (not everyone here codes) - Once you learn how to code, learn how to automate. Design everything you can to be declarative. - Learn how to speak and write well. - Learn how to negotiate and influence people (read the "classics", eg "Never Split the Difference...", "How to Win Friends...", and so on.) - Work to increase your EQ/Emotional Intelligence. (Yes, these are all actually productivity multipli…
Will you explain what you mean by "Design everything you can to be declarative"?