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Re: Read less HN

#111

Post by manmal »

richforrester wrote: post #28
fhd2 wrote: post #5

I can see how HN is bad for the author's well being, but certainly not for mine. I don't feel bad about reading other people's success stories. I don't feel any need to switch languages/frameworks when reading about new/hyped stuff. It's all just information, what you do with that is up to you.

I'm with you. I'm here as a consumer. I skim most articles. I waste little time. Instead, I get a humongous wealth of information on a great variety of topics. Also, one quick skim of the article list gives you a good idea of what's hot in tech. Even that has great value, and helps you decide what you should and shouldn't read. About 10% of the time I jump into comments straightaway because they give you a good idea…

So true! HN comments on hot new tech also act like gyro stabilization for me. When I read an article on tomorrow's hot new framework I often go "wtf I can't go on using Ruby and Ember" (although Ember is pretty new itself, if we're being honest); comments then help me manage my expectations. A la "There's no silver bullet", "this aspect is suboptimal", "you could try optimization X for established tech Y to achieve the same"...

Re: Read less HN

#112

Post by danenania »

zmmmmm wrote: post #69

I have a different problem with it, which is that it invariably makes me feel pretty incompetent, because no matter what subject comes up, people with 10 times my level of skill in fields that I consider myself relatively competent in start discussing things and I suddenly feel quite completely devoid of any skill at all. Even on a simple thing like posts about typing I find people lamenting how they are only able to…

My advice would be to embrace your generalist nature.

There are certainly roles fit for specialists, but generalists with rare blends of difficult and useful skills are a lot more valuable in most situations. Specialization in any one area tends to have rapidly diminishing returns.

I think any above average developer can make themselves more valuable at a much faster rate by becoming decent at complementary disciplines like design, user experience, conversion optimization, writing, etc. than by continuing to hone their development skills.

Even within development, becoming decent at every level of the stack, from dev ops and databases to front end, is usually going to add a lot more value than becoming slightly stronger at your specialty.

Re: Read less HN

#113

Post by raverbashing »

johnmurray_io wrote: post #27
plasma wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awareness. I'm development lead on my startup and just being aware of new tech, other startups, problems with frameworks, algorithms,... all help me be better informed for my job.

Exactly. Even a better reason to read curated content. You need to get awareness with what's going on in the tech community without sinking massive amounts of time. Do you really need to know about some lisp-variant someone implemented in 20 lines of Ruby.

I agree. But the problem is quality of curation.

Another problem, and maybe one can call it FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is that sometimes the best knowledge is deep inside the comments.

They may or may not be there but you have to filter all the babble.

Re: Read less HN

#115

Post by joshjmb »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #25
johnmurray_io wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but what is the opportunity cost of reading all of those posts and what are you really gaining from reading all of those "new technology of the month" postings?

Less time being a mindless drone, never leaving your lane? ;) I personally have learned quite a bit on HN that has led me to being a better programmer. A discovered Two Scoops of Django ( https://django.2scoops.org/ ), Javascript Allongé ( https://leanpub.com/javascript-allonge ), and plenty of other things that have expanded my mind. The debate between promises, callbacks, and generators made me think critically abo…

I definitely see the benefits here. But whenever I see a point like this I wonder: if you had replaced hacker news with a different activity, could you have formed a similar list of things you learned? Perhaps a longer list, or one of higher quality? Not trying to criticize you, just something I think about in these cases.

Re: Read less HN

#116

Post by Surio »

Your article did strike a chord with me, simply because I had the exact same epiphany that you write of, a few months ago, and have been spending less time on HN since.

So, point of my commment is, add me to your anecdata count, of another one that thought in the same way and arrived to the same conclusion.

Re: Read less HN

#117

Post by mercer »

michaelwww wrote: post #13

I've noticed that a lot of writers in tech generalize their experience to everyone in the community. Several times a day I'm struck by someone who talks about his/her experience like it's a common experience, when it may or may not be. I think it would be safer and more relatable if the author had said "HN - Bad for My Well Being," but of course that doesn't sound as portentous.

I get the impression this is a trait that seems more present in programmer types than many other people, and this fascinates me. I notice this in myself too. I almost always try to reduce/abstract my own problems or issues to 'general principles', and I tend to want to get to the root of things.

There are many plausible explanations for this (and obviously I've tried to get to the root of this phenomenon too), but at some point I started reflecting on whether this behavior is a good or bad thing.

I think it's both good and bad. It's good primarily because a lot of people look at their own problem in isolation, and share/address them as 'their unique problem', which keeps them from seeing underlying patterns or principles and from tapping into the experiences and observations of the countless others that have had pretty much the exact same problem. But it can also be bad, because not everyone likes being subjected or presented with this kind of generalization, and attempting to think about a problem in a general sense while you are suffering from it yourself complicates the search for solutions immensely (especially practical, direct solutions to implement).

Does anyone know if there has been research into this? I never really thought of diving in the the 'psychology' of programmers...

Re: Read less HN

#118

Post by nettletea »

Time is precious.

The issue I have with HN (and other Forums), is that there is a lot of repetition in the comments. In part on HN this is probably not helped as it's difficult to overview and digest threads, especially if the comment trees are large. Comment verbosity and positional changes also make it difficult.

I think that is why in part people come, post, then move on. Necro-posting, even a day late is pretty pointless if you want to add to the general discussion.

I think I'd rather comments have a character limit. Or to get people to post summaries of their posts as titles. And/or some tl;dr; post mortems on comment threads.

Re: Read less HN

#120

Post by michaelwww »

mercer wrote: post #117
michaelwww wrote: post #13

I've noticed that a lot of writers in tech generalize their experience to everyone in the community. Several times a day I'm struck by someone who talks about his/her experience like it's a common experience, when it may or may not be. I think it would be safer and more relatable if the author had said "HN - Bad for My Well Being," but of course that doesn't sound as portentous.

I get the impression this is a trait that seems more present in programmer types than many other people, and this fascinates me. I notice this in myself too. I almost always try to reduce/abstract my own problems or issues to 'general principles', and I tend to want to get to the root of things. There are many plausible explanations for this (and obviously I've tried to get to the root of this phenomenon too), but at…

By following startswithaj's excellent lesswrong link, I found an interesting doc about the subject : http://www.academia.edu/4589611/Dennett_and_The_Typical_Mind...

I noticed it in action recently when watching a David Lynch documentary about Transcendental Meditation where he describes his experience of meditation as "the cables of and elevator being cut and falling into oneness." My first thought was that Lynch has a very unique mind and probably doesn't realize that is not a very typical experience during meditation, but bless his heart, he wants everyone to have it.

Edit: David Wants to Fly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0payvR--nM

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