Please get some contrast and also test your site on computers that don't have retina displays or are not Macs.
You aren't getting any better
21–30 of 94 posts
Re: You aren't getting any better
#22it really boils down to work flow---are you actually producing output or spinning your wheels on unproductive thoughts and actions (reading hacker news, Facebook, talking on the phone). To get better, you have to maintain a consistent strong focus on producing.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#23It's because you can learn to build complicated systems, advanced algorithms and data structure but in the end, it isn't going to help you build a simple crud application any faster than someone who doesn't know these things. You could be getting better, but it won't show performance wise.
If you can do all that, you shouldn't be working on simple CRUD applications.
The tool is not the goal.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#24I'm not sure that the perception that we have continuous improvement is all that helpful. For one thing there are so many dimensions to improvement, and some of them are probably competing. To try and chase them all we will probably just line ourselves up for some break-down of some-sort.
I think understanding what you can and can't do will be far more useful in the long-run.
Also, a note on the stockbroker example. We're talking about 'average' performance for stockbrokers in their 20s and 40s. I can quite imagine that the 'average' performance is the same. But what's the standard deviation?!
Re: You aren't getting any better
#25After 34 years, my recipe for the best way to get better: Find customers. Satisfy them. Repeat. They will pull you kicking and screaming into your excellent future much faster than you can ever do it yourself.
After 15 years, my recipe for getting better.
Remain curious and constantly confused.
Do not use 'to be' verbs when describing interests or skills.
Oh and most important. To do it all for fun not because you want to 'improve' yourself. The rest follows.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#26As we're getting older we simply can't keep getting better in at the same speed . If you're a mentally balanced person your live will contain more and more unpredicted variables like a partner, kids, older parents and family members, health issues and what not. Things beside your work that require your time and attention.
Absolutely - I feel it's then still important to be honest about what you are doing and whether or not it's helping you in this way if that's what you want it to do. If you want to focus on other things then that's great and healthy, but recognise that flicking through Rails blogs and noodling around with ideas is what you do for recreation, and has very little impact on your professional development.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#27Stock brokers are a bad example, because that is essentially gambling. Also playing around with some API will make me better in using that API. What are some meaningful metrics for becoming a better developer? Personally, I'd like to launch more.
Came in to post this point as well.
Even if you don't consider it gambling, you judge a stock brokers talent based on their average return of investment for their portfolios.
Unless that average is increasing every year, its hard to say they are improving their talent.
Not many brokers and traders work on improving their ROI, they focus on compounding the capital they have at targets like 1% to 3%.
The law of diminishing returns also plays a big role in a stock brokers career, there are swing traders who may make only a few transactions a year, then there are day traders who make hundreds of trades a day. There isn't a strong correlation of hours trading to profits.
Comparing this at all to programming is like comparing apples to kittens.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#28Article title: 100% manipulation, 0% information. Please don't upvote these.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#29I'm not sure that the perception that we have continuous improvement is all that helpful. For one thing there are so many dimensions to improvement, and some of them are probably competing. To try and chase them all we will probably just line ourselves up for some break-down of some-sort. I think understanding what you can and can't do will be far more useful in the long-run. Also, a note on the stockbroker example.…
Agree 100% that it's fundamentally about understanding what you can/can't do and are/aren't doing. If you are jamming on what you know that that's totally fine, but it pays to realise this.
The stockbroker example was slightly poorly chosen - similar studies have been done on other professions, including physicians, in particular when inspecting scans for signs of cancer.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#30Please get some contrast and also test your site on computers that don't have retina displays or are not Macs. http://contrastrebellion.com/
I have a Mac and retina display and found the site hard to read. Perhaps one day, with experience, the site owner can think about and improve his legibility.
Perhaps I am just showing my age bias, but it seems from my perspective that I am handling more challenging problems more quickly with 25 years work experience. I do not have the work ethic (desire to work insane hours) I had then, but I am more effective now.