Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#161

Post by jiggawatts » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

ryanklee wrote: post #113

bazooka wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not deflective. Your comments are rather dense. The orthodoxy of ‘changing frame’ and ‘putting it in a language they understand’ is layman drivel. It is not always possible to do so and it is overwhelmingly untractable if you eskew the fundamental reasons in a discussion with a non-expert that insists on technical justification and just doesn’t take your cookie-cutter time/money/competitive advantage talking po…

It's the job of an expert to communicate their understanding of the world in a way that motivates non experts to make the correct the decision. If an expert isn't successful in this, they need to improve their methods of communication. Everything else is an excuse.

This presumes that the expert shouldn’t be the one making the decision.

Law firms are run by lawyers. The chief of surgery is a surgeon. Architecture firms are run by architects at the top.

Why is it that in IT it is expected that all management of IT is “non technical” to the point of not understanding what they’re hearing from direct reports!?

Would it be normal in your mind for a chemical plant foreman in charge of the process to not know what atoms are!?

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#162

Post by varjag » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 11:03 PM UTC

synetic wrote: post #92

selykg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as the economist. I suspect he understands that they're theories, thus, to some extent guesses. Some data might support it, but does it hold true in every case? Probably not. Does it hold true in most cases? Maybe not. Would he bet money, effectively what a hedge fund does in my very limited experience here? Sounds like no. This to me sounds like a simple example of he understands the limitations of his work!…

It was a joke (most likely) in the part of the economist. Self deprecation.

Takes a finance guy to take it on face value.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#163

Post by someweirdperson » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 11:44 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #154

someweirdperson wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who consider software written, I mean painted, or as they say modelled, in the language of e.g. Simulink to be of higher value than other representations of code. The reason for this is probably different use of the same terms. Some code might be tested within an implementation of a model of the real environment. That is a frequent use-case used to sell graphical languages. The term model is used for…

I think this is still doing it a disservice. You don't test a code with a model of the real environment. You execute the code, which was modeling something. Consider, "F=ma" is a mathematical model relating force to mass and acceleration. You can test this by dropping several things each from the same height and seeing that the force linearly increases based on the mass of what you are dropping. Similarly, you could…

> Is that not a "model" because it is not necessarily graphical?

For some people model==graphical, usually mechanical/electrical engineers, not software-engineers. Engineers maintain the holy "model", and the translation to lowly code is a job for the lowest-bidding software person.

Maybe it wasn't clear, but I do not agree with that point of view, and tried to explain how I think people may have found their belief.

I assumed the parent^4 was labeling their code model in an attempt to elevate themself to the ranks of the code painters.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#164

Post by kulikalov » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 12:00 AM UTC

If it quacks like a duck - it must be a duck. Not really.

> In every profession there’s a point where further improvements in skills are so subtle that the difference between one level and another can only be appreciated by another expert

Goal defines the benchmark for proficiency.

Better tennis player scores. Better software engineer writes more space/time efficient code or solves business problem faster (whichever the objective). Better writer gets more views or inbound sales or whatever the goal is.

If you get better at achieving ever greater goals, then your expertise is growing. No amount of luck can compensate for a lack of expertise.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#165

Post by taeric » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 12:16 AM UTC

someweirdperson wrote: post #163

taeric wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is still doing it a disservice. You don't test a code with a model of the real environment. You execute the code, which was modeling something. Consider, "F=ma" is a mathematical model relating force to mass and acceleration. You can test this by dropping several things each from the same height and seeing that the force linearly increases based on the mass of what you are dropping. Similarly, you could…

> Is that not a "model" because it is not necessarily graphical? For some people model==graphical, usually mechanical/electrical engineers, not software-engineers. Engineers maintain the holy "model", and the translation to lowly code is a job for the lowest-bidding software person. Maybe it wasn't clear, but I do not agree with that point of view, and tried to explain how I think people may have found their belief.…

I'm curious on this. Do you have links that go over this? I've not seen a hard distinction that models are graphical, pretty much ever. The very idea of "machine learning models" flies in the face of that, as I've rarely seen machine learning models presented in a graphical way.

Best I can think in this direction, is UML? But that is an odd one, because it isn't that "models" are graphical, but those are specifically models of code artifacts. A model of another modeling language, as it were.

Reading back over the top comment, I assumed that the poster meant they started seeing their coding as modeling of a problem domain. Not that they weren't still coding, somewhat.

Disclosure, I was an EE way back when. We had plenty of numerical models for how things worked. We even had verilog to model circuits using what looks a lot like "traditional" software.

That all said, if I just haven't kept up and "model" is moving in meaning, I wouldn't be too shocked. :D

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#166

Post by yen223 » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 1:09 AM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #74

xyzelement wrote: post #71

Not directly related to the article but I had two amusing encounters with expertise recently. I sat next to an Econ professor (at an Ivy) on a flight. I told him I had worked at a hedge fund, and he was like "wow, I could never put myself in a situation where my living depended on my economic theories being right." A good friend of mine is a kinda-famous evolutionary biologist. He's in his mid-40s now, unmarried and…

I see zero problem with having no children and studying evolution. You don’t need to become superconductive to study the physics of superconductivity. You don’t need to become infected by every virus to study virology, and you definietly don’t need to be a virus to be a good virologist. So why would you need to pass on your genes to study evolution?

Maybe the lack of superconductive scientists is the reason why we haven't unlocked room-temperature superconductivity.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#167

Post by brookst » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 4:35 AM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #79

brookst wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this so often: engineers who think it’s demeaning to explain deeply technical things in business terms, so they refuse. Like it’s somehow noble to only speak one language.

> engineers who think it’s demeaning to explain deeply technical things in business terms, so they refuse I can, and have, explained 'deeply technical things' in 'business terms'. And people understood. Then made a bad/poor/wrong choice anyway, because... "well... all those things you're saying might happen, they might not. Or... it may not happen for months or years, and we already committed to date X for project Y"…

Yes? The position is not that being a good communicator guarantees perfect results every time.

The position is that intentionally being a bad communicator guarantees poor results most of the time.

Same way that not driving drunk does not guarantee you won’t get in a wreck.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#168

Post by Corrado » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:33 AM UTC

Enginerrrd wrote: post #151

fidotron wrote: post #11

There is clearly a major problem with this in SV. A lot of people seem to confuse confidence with expertise, and fail to grasp that a scary proportion of the time the individual is so confident because they don’t understand the problems with what they are doing. Furthermore, modern software management practice doesn’t want this because it wants replaceable cogs. If you can recognize expertise you have to appreciate t…

I actually think ageism is a huge component of this. In classical engineering fields, experience was highly valued. In some it still is. In civil engineering, no 24 year old will be able to bullshit their way into senior level roles. It just doesn't happen. The senior guys get more and more valuable. A big part of that is that it's very hard to bullshit your way through that field without at least 6-8 years of experi…

I've seen this happen in my career. In a previous life we hired a person just out of college into a "Senior" developer role. Sure, the person was smart but they didn't have the experience, they hadn't made the mistakes or seen the outcomes of various decisions to be called "Senior".

I've struggled since then describing why I felt this way and I think the essay helps immensely. In my recollection that developer didn't reach a software vocab point and couldn't really understand the difference. The pain point for me was that I could spot the difference and no one (in management) really cared.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#169

Post by Corrado » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:41 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #2

This is an extremely important article to read for professionals of all sorts, not just freelancers. It's an issue that I struggle with nearly daily. I can't convince customers to pay me what I'm worth, because they can't judge my true value. Meanwhile, they'll happily pay Deloitte or Accenture 3x as much as what I charge, and then take the misguided ramblings of a junior-sold-as-senior at face value, not knowing the…

I have a couple of similar experiences. I've spent >1,500 hours playing Team Fortress 2 and can recognize things that other gamer friends just can't see. I'm still not good at TF2, but I can recognize great playing.

Years ago I was active in Tae Kwon Do and achieved black-belt status. One time, during a sparing match with my teacher, I was astounded to be able to spot a hole in his defense. In fact, I was so distracted by my perception that I completely froze and he scored a point. I like to think that my seeing that hole gave me a glimpse into what it might be like to be good at TDK. I still think about that experience to this day.

Re: Ability to see expertise is a milestone worth aiming for (2022)

#170

Post by Corrado » Sat, Jul 22, 2023, 7:46 AM UTC

I've experienced "tacit..feelings" personally on many development projects. I'm not sure why this path is better than the other path, but it just feels better to me. One example is where to put new code. Do you put it in the existing code (monolith) or do you create a "service" for the code? Sure, some things are pretty straightforward but sometimes there really is a toss up of where this new thing should live.

The problem is when someone asks me why, I can't really explain it and it gives less weight to the decision. However, looking back I can say that I've been more right than wrong, so I guess I have that going for me.