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Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

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Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#41

Post by thomasrossi »

When you don't know yourself even a victory has a defeat inside. Among all that you said: math and data science are very nice skills to have. A theorem is not a matter of fashion it is true (under his hypothesis) it will always work for you.

I am extra full of things running in parallel so no good teacher here! But I can share my experience: what made me step up from random to mediocre programmer were the test classes, because finally stuff was making sense: the test class is the theorem, my code is the demonstration, I could work with that. You have to find your ways to make cool things work efficiently and reliably.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#42

Post by maze-le »

endymi0n wrote: post #32

For me, the major insight was to realize that the best of the best are struggling just as much as myself. I often come back to this diagram for relief, and it's true. http://www.invokemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/venndi... It's really all about focus. Learn one thing at once. Rinse and repeat, and come back to the topic later for more insight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_approach Don't be afraid to s…

> In the end, if you're not embarrased about the code you wrote half a year ago, it's a sign you're not progressing.

Interesting opinion. I have that experience often enough when I look at rusty old code of mine. But I always was under the impression, that this is something of a problem, not a good sign...

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#43

Post by x3c »

gscott wrote: post #39
collyw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get as many job offers by becoming an expert in one area though.... How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum? (Does doing a stand up every day make you better at it? )

Those job postings are designed to weed out Americans and hire Indians. Real postings are more reasonable.

Could you elaborate, please?

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#44

Post by mseebach »

collyw wrote: post #36
uniclaude wrote: post #26

As some noted, the fact that you realized what drives your desire is very impressive. It takes a certain skill to understand those things! As someone who's been at it for years, I'll just give you one little piece of advice. If you've already been through the fundamentals, you've done enough. Now, instead of focusing on learning technology, focus on building things, this is what real engineers do. Let me explain. You…

You don't get as many job offers by becoming an expert in one area though.... How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum? (Does doing a stand up every day make you better at it? )

You don't want those job offers anyway, so don't worry about it. Finding a good job is not a numbers game.

(Anecdote: I rejected an offer from a YC startup once because ~60% of the process was them fretting about me not having Ruby on Rails experience. I didn't (and don't) want to work for a CTO that doesn't understand that fundamentals travel between languages.)

As the GP said, any CTO or dev lead worth their salt would hire a dev with good fundamentals in the 'wrong' language over one with poor fundamentals in the right one.

You have to do some legwork to identify who these CTOs and dev leads that care about good fundamentals are. You'll need to engage with the tech community around where you are/want to work and talk to people. It's not a numbers game.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#48

Post by mseebach »

amelius wrote: post #40
mikekchar wrote: post #23

You make 2 interesting statements: - I realised I was a mediocre programmer - ... (I) find that my desire is driven by fear ... The first is a good feeling :-) Too many programmers don't have this realisation. Embrace it! The second is something that worries me slightly. All of the programmers that I know who are driven by fear let it chase them into failure. Getting the "joy of tinkering back" is what you need. Forg…

> Getting the "joy of tinkering back" is what you need. That would be pretty hard if you'd be working on a 20+ year old legacy system written in COBOL.

First - why not? Apply fantasy.

Second, that doesn't subtract from the advice being correct. Sometimes the thing you need to do is just "pretty hard". Or, put reversely, if you never do things just because they are hard, don't be surprised when you end up in a boring and uninspiring place.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#49

Post by Jem »

Do you want to learn all of those because you have a genuine interest in doing so, or do you want to learn all of those things because you feel you "should"?

I browse HN and read comments and articles I do not even begin to understand, and it's hard not to feel rapidly inferior. But you don't have to be a genius to make a difference, and you don't have to be a genius to be happy.

I make my living off the back of PHP. Sure it's got a bad rep, but it's hard to knock something that keeps a roof over my kid's heads and their bellies full.

If you want to learn because of genuine interest - do one thing at a time. Let your curiosity guide you. And good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#50

Post by franciscop »

maze-le wrote: post #42
endymi0n wrote: post #32

For me, the major insight was to realize that the best of the best are struggling just as much as myself. I often come back to this diagram for relief, and it's true. http://www.invokemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/venndi... It's really all about focus. Learn one thing at once. Rinse and repeat, and come back to the topic later for more insight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_approach Don't be afraid to s…

> In the end, if you're not embarrased about the code you wrote half a year ago, it's a sign you're not progressing. Interesting opinion. I have that experience often enough when I look at rusty old code of mine. But I always was under the impression, that this is something of a problem, not a good sign...

Definitely a good sign. It even extends to other areas besides programming; as a non-native English speaker, at some point I was happy that I didn't really need to use the dictionary anymore. Then I realized that it actually meant that I wasn't pushing my boundaries enough and I started picking up more difficult books and learning Japanese (:
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