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Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

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Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#41

Post by noonespecial »

I've felt like this my entire life. You're in a good spot. You know a lot about what you don't know. You are prepared to learn these things as you need them to reach your goals. It's the people who feel like they are experts who have actually stalled.

You can easily spend the rest of your life shaving these mythical yaks and when you are old and surrounded by mountains of yak hair, you'll feel exactly the same as you do now.

There is more to learn than you can ever hope to. Just learn what you need as you go. It's the key to all existential crisis: Try not to think so much.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#42

Post by [deleted] »

lettergram wrote: post #37
electronvolt wrote: post #36

If you want to improve at programming: follow the advice about either making a personal project or working on an open source project. The fastest way to get better at programming is to program more. However: it sounds like your interests are actually more in the realm of Computer Science than Programming, though: type theory, theory of computation, compilers, AI, etc. are less in the realm of programming and much mor…

Wow, awesome response.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#43

Post by eshyong »

electronvolt wrote: post #36

If you want to improve at programming: follow the advice about either making a personal project or working on an open source project. The fastest way to get better at programming is to program more. However: it sounds like your interests are actually more in the realm of Computer Science than Programming, though: type theory, theory of computation, compilers, AI, etc. are less in the realm of programming and much mor…

Just an addition to your course suggestion: Coursera has a compilers course too, taught by a Stanford professor! I'm working through it right now. The lectures are informative and the assignments have you build a working version of a COOL (professor's own language) to MIPS assembly compiler. It's been very enlightening so far!

https://class.coursera.org/compilers-004

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#44

Post by electronvolt »

lettergram wrote: post #37
electronvolt wrote: post #36

If you want to improve at programming: follow the advice about either making a personal project or working on an open source project. The fastest way to get better at programming is to program more. However: it sounds like your interests are actually more in the realm of Computer Science than Programming, though: type theory, theory of computation, compilers, AI, etc. are less in the realm of programming and much mor…

Wow, awesome response.

I recently finished up my undergraduate education and realized there were certain large important parts of computer science I knew very little to nothing about (I stopped really taking CS classes to go take a lot of advanced math courses my last two years, which I'm not certain was the best decision, but it wasn't a bad one either), so I've been thinking a lot in the past few months about what my best options were for learning about subjects I'm weak in or knew next to nothing about. (E.x.: implementation of databases, OS design, AI, HCI, and other fields) Putting that into words wasn't too difficult, and hopefully it'll make figuring things out easier for someone else... I tried the reading papers and textbook approach, which is part of why I wouldn't recommend them.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#45

Post by patio11 »

Do you want to be a programmer or a computer scientist? They're both options. One of them ships software for a living, the other ships journal articles. (This is a joke grounded more than a little bit in reality.)

Your list of interests sounds like that of a computer scientist, but I'm allocating a little space to "Maybe your only exposure to computer programming so far has been undergrad CS and you're describing it in the only language anyone has ever taught you."

The best way to skill up as a programmer, if you're interested in that, is to ship more software. There is deep, mythical knowledge in programming, and it is acquired with sweat on your brow and a pickaxe in your hand chipping away at a coal face made out of Why Doesn't This Freaking Work.

You will note that most programs you work on build on things you have heard about in CS classes but do not implicate most of them directly. Compilers are very nice to understand. If you want to be a programmer, absent you making the goal of working on compilers your life's work for the next 10 years, you will probably not work on compilers. Most coal faces sound like something rather more like "A business has some fairly straightforward transformations to be made on two sets of data. There's plenty of opportunity for smart implementation choices and cleverness, but that mostly informs the small rather than the large of this project." (Cleverness in the large in programming is good selection of which coal faces to attack at all. After you get there people often stop calling you a programmer no matter how much programming you do.)

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#47

Post by yaur »

Ship a product. More specifically, think something up, write it, ship it. Along the way learn what you don't know to finish it, but the first time you try this don't push yourself too hard. Once your done, post a "ShowHN" and we will probably tell you whats wrong with it.

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#48

Post by frigg »

>Sure I know what a NFA is, but ask me convert it to a DFA and I'm lost.

Do you really think your average HNer knows how to do that? Or even know what that means and how you define it? I really don't think so :)

In my opinion you know plenty about computer science, certainly much more than your average programmer, but I understand how you feel. I think of myself as not knowledgeable enough and below average all the time.

You haven't mentioned your goal. Do you want to eventually work in any of the areas you mentioned? Or rather you want to learn this for your own intellectual curiosity?

Re: Ask HN: I feel like an 'expert beginner' and I don't know how to get better

#50

Post by gte910h »

> I lack 'deep', real knowledge and am desperate to acquire this mythical stuff before it's too late.

I mean, there are books on this stuff? Read them, do their exercises, and you will be fine.

I will say, most of this stuff now functions mostly as mind training. The specifics about low level computer systems, Big (O), parsing and compilers is the only part I see repeated use in my day to day.

>So knowing this, how would I best use say 8-12 hours a day, every day, to learn this stuff?

You should audit courses at a CS program taught near you. This stuff is chunky and the books are designed mostly for a classroom setting

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