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

Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 704 posts

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#381

Post by jhanschoo »

projectileboy wrote: post #157
hu3 wrote: post #83

Learning that some folks can produce so much value with crappy code. I've seen entire teams burn so much money by overcomplicating projects. Bikesheding about how to implement DDD, Hexagonal Architecture, design patterns, complex queues that would maybe one day be required if the company scaled 1000x, unnecessary eventual consistency that required so much machinery and man hours to keep data integrity under control.…

As a good friend of mine often says: We work in a field of people who envision themselves as artists, when all that is wanted are painters.

It's the same in the creative industry, no? Teens fall into it practicing the techniques of artistic self-expression wanting to make a career out of showing the world themselves with expressive finesse, but the alienable value in these skills lie in using them to create a consistent brand identity etc.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#382

Post by killingtime74 »

jv22222 wrote: post #54

I was asked by a pro. documentary maker (who I met on the plane flying in to London) to get some B role for a G&R concert he was filming (with his spare video camera). I was given the camera and sent in to the mosh pit to film from that perspective. After the show I gave the camera back to him. He said, "where's the footage?" I had been "filming" looking through the view finder, but I had forgotten to press record. G…

Nit: B-roll, like when they used rolls of film back in the day

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#383

Post by rulalala »

talkingtab wrote: post #211

Yes. I was with two friends in Quetico at a cabin. Temps of -20 below at night. Wood stove, no electricity no running water. We cross country skied over frozen lakes to the cabin. It was a log cabin and the logs were colder than ice cubes and stayed that way over the ten days we were there. In the center was a pot belly wood stove. A foot away from it, the temp was 50. Ten feet away it was 20. Cold. There was a wood…

Reminds me of arriving late a winter night into a mountain shelter at 2000 m. after 6h of approximation... to find that another team arrived earlier and consumed all the means to start a fire, failing on it. My companion digged out some paper from his cigarettes box and succeeded, to the cheering of all happy present individuals.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#384

Post by 4pkjai »

Someone gave me a pack of Indome noodles and I started making them like the soupy instant noodles I had normally eaten. Someone saw me and said "That's not how you make those" as I was about to squeeze the sauce sachets into the hot water with the noodles.

I said "I know how to make instant noodles!" and I continued making them. He replied with "Okay then".

After I had made them I realised he was right. I also thought it was cool that he just let me be wrong. In his position I would have pestered the other guy into doing in the right way.

I learnt a few lessons:

1. How to make Indome noodles 2. I'm not always right 3. It's okay to let other people be wrong.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#385

Post by e4325f »

bloomingeek wrote: post #225

In 1993 I was interviewed for an operating job in a power plant for a major airline, assigned to their data center. At my current job, I was working in a high rise office building with sixty-six floors. The operating system computer was a JC8520, which was running a version of MS-DOS. All commands had to be typed in correctly or nothing would happen. While operating the plant, several commands had to be entered every…

I was once asked about Slack, fortunately they were already a colleague

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#386

Post by rulalala »

arank wrote: post #346

It was my second day in NYC as the new incoming student at Columbia University graduate school. My senior with whom I was staying took me for sightseeing. We got into the subway station and my senior went ahead and I got late while purchasing the tickets. I swiped the card at the "turnstile" and waited for it to move up automatically so I can go ahead. After waiting for 2-3 minutes, I thought something must be wrong.…

NY has these old quirks, strange for me too coming from Europe.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#387

Post by dotinvoke »

rcbdev wrote: post #363
icelancer wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants to be a "programmer." They'd rather be called "engineers." With none of the licensure, mandatory education, and so forth. But the world needs programmers and technicians for most of the work we have to do. I do comparably little "engineering" and the little I have done that qualifies for such a statement I recall. Majority of the work is programming and technician work. Nothing wrong with that.

Maybe not in the U.S. but in Europe, Software Engineering is often a field of engineering where one can get licensed. i.e. in Austria many IT techs and devs are called (at the doctor's office or in formal settings) "Mr. Engineer" ("Herr Ingenieur") if they fulfill some formal criteria and get licensed. A further qualification is becoming a federally certified civil technician for IT (Ziviltechniker or Ingenieurskonsu…

I live in a country where software engineers often have engineering degrees.

What that means in practice is that they study math and physics for the first 2-3 years of their degree, instead of computer science or software engineering.

Does that make them build better systems than Californian devs? Based on company revenues and salaries, I’d say no.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#388

Post by [deleted] »

jasonkester wrote: post #275

I lived in Pamplona, Spain for a year, back before my Spanish was particularly good. It was a pretty amazing place, with all its narrow cobbled alleys and small shops. They had a particular style of bread in a few of the shops, kind of a rustic baguette with pointy ends, that I never could find the name of. I'd always have to point and say "that one", which always felt awkward. Worse, my Spanish wasn't yet good enoug…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#389

Post by lyu07282 »

rcbdev wrote: post #363
icelancer wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one wants to be a "programmer." They'd rather be called "engineers." With none of the licensure, mandatory education, and so forth. But the world needs programmers and technicians for most of the work we have to do. I do comparably little "engineering" and the little I have done that qualifies for such a statement I recall. Majority of the work is programming and technician work. Nothing wrong with that.

Maybe not in the U.S. but in Europe, Software Engineering is often a field of engineering where one can get licensed. i.e. in Austria many IT techs and devs are called (at the doctor's office or in formal settings) "Mr. Engineer" ("Herr Ingenieur") if they fulfill some formal criteria and get licensed. A further qualification is becoming a federally certified civil technician for IT (Ziviltechniker or Ingenieurskonsu…

Yet almost every major piece of software or idea started in California and almost nothing noteworthy in the space started in Austria. I think that tells us something about the real value of a piece of paper granting you the right to call yourself an "engineer".

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#390

Post by vasco »

eru wrote: post #375
vasco wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he was the most senior sysadmin it's already his responsibility to keep things safe anyway, so if you trust him for all the rest of the infra you can trust him for a proxy.

I'm not so sure. I can imagine trusting someone to set up (and even enforce) eg an alcohol policy, but still be prone to alcohol abuse themselves. Weak wills are a thing. Or people thinking they are smarter than the protocols that apply to the masses.

All I mean is he is the person paid to do this already so it's not extra dangerous. It's like a policeman doing a citizens arrest if they spot a crime on the off hours. It's frowned upon but you know it's the same thing they do in their job.
Post reply on HN