181–190 of 190 posts
Oh John, I wouldn't call him a pilot, you know, he flies people in his small airplane and gets paid for it but he doesn't know how to fly helicopters or jets and he didn't study fluid dynamics, so he's a "Cessna pilot".
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>> why do veterans seem to do so poorly What are you saying that we do poorly at? Your comments are more "confounding" to me than any war situation I was ever in.
You do poorly at kicking ass & making bank in civilian life. This is a tricky subject, of course (any statistics from 2001 and on are basically worthless because all the suicides and whatnot from Iraq & Afghanistan trash the data), and there are all sorts of correlation/causation problems (maybe the people who join would do poorly in the first place - these days, most of the graduating class of Harvard heads to Wall…
You can't switch from studies and causation/correlation to just stating without citation that they suck at kicking ass.
The amount of negativity in this thread is depressing. I think a lot of people either didn't read the article or just skimmed it. For those of you who are citing Peter Norvig's essay, I also thought of the essay when I read this; it's one of my favorites. I've read it several times because it is humbling and inspires me to rise to the challenge of really becoming a great programmer. If Matt reads it he might feel sim…
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Ahh I misread into your post. Yeah, the article wasn't well written and could've gone into more detail about different things but honestly I feel that an experienced programmer would know a better route for someone to take, for example I know a lot of programmers suggest people start with SICP.
Starting someone who has no programming experience with SICP is idiotic.
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Starting someone who has no programming experience with SICP is idiotic.
The book was written for an introductory programming course at MIT. It is more rigorous of a book then most and may not be for everyone starting programming, but the right people will seek it out. It is also invaluable in that it teaches the programmer about programming more then languages.
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A musician is someone who can communicate to other people via musical instruments. You are a musician, you just might not be a very good one. Similarly a songwriter is someone who creates songs, so you are a songwriter, you just might not be a good one.
The only thing that I can really communicate via a musical instrument is that it's a good thing I'm a programmer.
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The book was written for an introductory programming course at MIT. It is more rigorous of a book then most and may not be for everyone starting programming, but the right people will seek it out. It is also invaluable in that it teaches the programmer about programming more then languages.
Exactly -- the right people will seek it out.
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Exactly -- the right people will seek it out.
Seeking things out doesn't just mean you read these things on articles or stumble upon them in libraries, it can also detail things like conversations with other people. Either way it is just an example that a guru might have a path that someone can follow that will get them somewhere quicker then a non-guru.
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Let's not confuse correlation with causation; I once looked around for studies showing experimental interventions which actually increased work ethic (specifically, I was looking for studies on the Big Five construct 'Conscientiousness') and didn't find any. So, I'm sure the work ethic that let him join and last 10 years in the USMC helped.
Lets not confuse an absence of evidence as an evidence of absence - just because there's no study yet that shows that 10 years in the USMC helps with work ethic, doesn't mean that 10 year in the USMC does NOT help with work ethic (unless you mean to say in your survey of the lit. you found something claiming the opposite of the op's claim). That said, I'm inclined to agree with your last statement...
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o...