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

Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

vanadac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 371 posts

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#31

Post by Mz »

nether wrote: post #23

I'm not gifted, I'm actually pretty dumb. Can anyone help a stupid normal person relate to this article?

Gifted kids often do not learn to study and do not learn patience or discipline because it just never comes up for them. They get enough right in school without those things that it is not part of their background. Then, one day, after they are adults, they need good study habits or patience or something like that and don't have it and it bites them in the ass.

(There are ways around that but most parents and teachers don't know how to help a gifted kid with those areas.)

Does that help?

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#32

Post by mathattack »

grandalf wrote: post #28
adriancooney wrote: post #19

This is so inadvertently affectionate. It's like a grandparent trying to calm down their overconfident, arrogant child. So eloquent. As a side note, I can't even imagine how Torvalds worked with others without source control. That sounds like absolute hell.

except for the part where he mentions that they all gossip behind Linus' back.

That's actually good grandfatherly advice too. It's worth knowing when people are talking behind your back.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#34

Post by mathattack »

There are now lots of articles suggesting praising people for effort rather than intelligence. Seems like Raymond was ahead of the curve.

2 examples of many:

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9862693/P...

[2] http://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/chi...

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#35

Post by shawkinaw »

icambron wrote: post #30
logicallee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah seriously this might have been the suggestion that led to bitkeeper that led to git. Which Linus invented and coded up essentially to solve some of the problems brought up here Which (git) today arguably has done more for programming groups than all the new languages and frameworks of the past fourteen years combined. So, it is interesting. But mostly interesting because of how massive Git spawned from it.

s/bitbucket/bitkeeper

/

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#36

Post by alecco »

I think, in context, Linus was probably right. There are some situations where having 2 very different project/modules depend on common code could be hell. Just remember the multiple WebKit debacles or the BSDs. It might be better to keep an eye on each other, pick the specific updates, but have total independency. Else, you end up in commit wars and endless arguing on mailing lists.

ESR is way overrated, IMHO.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#37

Post by BlackDeath3 »

nether wrote: post #23

I'm not gifted, I'm actually pretty dumb. Can anyone help a stupid normal person relate to this article?

I don't know if I'm "gifted" or not (how does one even determine such things outside of test scores and such?), but I suppose I'll try to rephrase. I don't know how much help I can be, and in-fact austenallred's post may be more illuminating.

What it seems to come down to is that some people are just naturally better at some things than others (for whatever reason). People have often told me that I have a pretty good memory (I disagree, but that's what they say), mostly due to the fact that I've been able to, on occasion, drudge up meaningless trivia with little exposure to it. I don't know why or how I can do it, I just can.

Though I'm sometimes "pretty good" at remembering things, problems would likely arise if I were to, say, try to skate through a course or six on organic chemistry based on this "ability" alone. Because past expectations have led me to believe that I don't need to work hard to commit things to memory, it may be a nasty shock if I one day find out that I'm wrong. If that happens and I haven't made good use of time that others have spent studying, I'm suddenly behind.

I hope that makes sense.

Off-topic because I'm curious: what makes you think that you're dumb?

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#38

Post by TrainedMonkey »

austenallred wrote: post #18

I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real. Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to. The math teacher would teach "3x + 6 = 9." Basic algebraic probl…

I got burned by this too. Problem, unfortunately, goes deeper than just not learning how to do math. You skip learning ability to structurally learn new things at a young age, because you simply "get" how things work. So by the time you hit the wall you not only not know how to do math correctly, but also have no idea how to structurally learn correct way and must do both at the same time. Here most people give up and say they are bad at math.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#39

Post by [deleted] »

icambron wrote: post #30
logicallee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah seriously this might have been the suggestion that led to bitkeeper that led to git. Which Linus invented and coded up essentially to solve some of the problems brought up here Which (git) today arguably has done more for programming groups than all the new languages and frameworks of the past fourteen years combined. So, it is interesting. But mostly interesting because of how massive Git spawned from it.

s/bitbucket/bitkeeper

[deleted]

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#40

Post by delluminatus »

austenallred wrote: post #18

I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real. Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to. The math teacher would teach "3x + 6 = 9." Basic algebraic probl…

Yes, it's real. In my case, overconfidence in high school led me to not devote the effort -- to not know how to devote the effort -- to securing acceptance to a prestigious college. It ended up OK -- I graduated a year early at the college I did attend -- so I'm not complaining, but I still notice effects of the "curse" impacting my behavior every day, especially when faced with intimidating work or with looking the fool.
Post reply on HN