I find my time limited but I have a 35 minute commute to work and a 35 minute commute back home. So I download podcasts and listen to them.
Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
71–80 of 87 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#72Have you considered the idea that you are still learning but just not things that you care about/appreciate?
When I left school and started working I also felt like I wasn't learning, but when I sat down to think about it, I actually was learning a great deal. I just didn't feel like I was learning because I didn't care for anything I was learning.
You will almost certainly learn new things on the job but those things are likely things aligned to your employer's interests and not your own. I think you might want to see what interests/excites you and try to dive into that material instead of learning things that other people think are useful or suggest.
Even in the comments here you can see people recommending learning new frameworks and others recommending classical texts like SICP or even learning functional languages. Clearly each of these groups of people thinks what they are learning is useful or important. On the other hand, they might not think what the other group is learning is very useful. I certainly don't feel very happy learning a new language or framework, but other people don't like learning theory unless they can use it to build something.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#73Battlefield 4. Laugh if you will, but playing this game (or games like it) against other humans is an incredible mental exercise. There is little downtime and twitch does win the day. Interestingly, I usually only play when I'm too tired to code productively anymore - and playing brings me wide awake. It's amazing to me when watching others play how they miss cues I can now see. Or how my mind has subconsciously opti…
There's awesome game which improves twitch reflexes and feels like nice exercise for brain: osu! I usually do this in between active learning to reduce stress. Works like physical exercise.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I must second this. I worked as a TA for 2.5 years while pursuing my Master's degree, and I learned a whole lot more by teaching than by studying. The most amazing thing is to be able to tell students that you have absolutely no idea of the answer to their questions, but that you're going to find out together.
Do you have any suggestions for starting to teach?
First, teach something you are interested in. This will keep you going when something is challenging. Even if you don't consider yourself a "pro" in the subject, you can always get to that level.
Find somewhere you can teach and receive feedback. I teach piano to students and several times I've been caught with a question I had to look up. The best thing you can do is say "I don't know but I'll figure it out for you". Plus, this way you also have to figure out a way to explain it in a simple method to those you are teaching.
Feedback is really important because it will be how you can affirm what you know and also give you opportunities to branch out. If you aren't getting feedback on a blog, forum, or wherever you may just need to find the right place to share your knowledge.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any suggestions for starting to teach?
First, teach something you are interested in. This will keep you going when something is challenging. Even if you don't consider yourself a "pro" in the subject, you can always get to that level. Find somewhere you can teach and receive feedback. I teach piano to students and several times I've been caught with a question I had to look up. The best thing you can do is say "I don't know but I'll figure it out for you"…
Great answer, I will add to this that you need a lot of patience. So yeah, if you are not interested in the subject, this gets a whole lot difficult.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#76I kept learning til 30. Now i'm still learning at 33 but it feels different. Once you learn enough is more about the ability of connecting dots. I.e. I know a load of libraries and built a fair deal myself, including a orm and a crud framework from ground up, and I know many of the pitfalls (I fell for many of them but I was young and foolish) however I also learned the why stuff grlets built a certain way and now it…
Seconded...learning is not a linear-time experience...or, it shouldn't be at least. I didn't learn much during and right after university. But after a few years on the job as a reporter, I started getting ideas about how to apply my programming experience. One of my first programming-on-the-job experiences was writing a scraper for the local sheriff's website, so I didn't have to manually click through the inmate lis…
To expand about university: it's my personal experience so ymmv
Almost nothing in my curricula mapped to anything I worked afterward, and I am very glad of that. They forced me to learn how to think, how to solve problem, and gave me a set of analytical tools to understand the software world.
True, I had to figure out java and javascript and aLl the other stuff on the gritty nitty details of programming myself, but I learned a lot faster than people attending work skill universities how to not work by coincidence and how to solve the real problem of software development of which coding is actually the very minor part.
I'm amazed when I see people lost in coding while that is actually the less relevant part of the job.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#77I find that having a voracious appetite to explore as many associated fields and topics to your area of work or interest is not only interesting and enjoyable but gives your mind some pause on the close-at-hand stuff while you gain the very important pieces that inform a big picture view of what you are doing. Plus, you can often get new outside-the-box ideas this way.
Exactly. I had been wondering if my way of sticking to work related things while exploring stuff in my own time was the best way of learning, but due to the kind of free time I get it is the most optimal strategy. For example though I would love to complete SICP I just don't have the kind of time it needs, so instead I try to read as much as possible about OOPS explore languages that are exemplify OO design but aren'…
I'd offer a different take. SICP is pretty intense stuff in parts. Don't feel obligated to understand it all or to finish it as a full-read. Rather, when it gets tough, continue reading, but give yourself permission to not fully understand it. Skim it, whatever, the exposure will leave something. You can always come back for a second round. But, more importantly, also explore many different programming paradigms, don't just focus on OOP. Learn a lot about FP, FRP, Declarative. Whatever paradigm you use, it will make you think more openly about problems.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#78I try to work through hard technical material. Personally, I enjoy both technical books and MIT OCW lectures. There were a number of courses in school that I was interested in and didn't have time for, so I've been looking at the online equivalents. "Working through" means doing exercises and projects. Reading or watching material without applying it doesn't help. I aim to spend an hour a day on this. It doesn't alwa…
Just out of curiosity, how much of TAOCP have you worked through in terms of exercises? I'm currently working through Concrete Mathematics and while it's a very good book, I'm also finding it very challenging, so I'm a little hesitant to even think about working through TAOCP...
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#79>I read. I work on side projects. I learn new programs like Sketch, take classes on Udemy and Coursera Sounds like you are already doing more to improve than most! >I'm not learning that much on the job anymore, just adding value to the company. Do you feel like you are often the smartest person in the room where you currently work? If so, time to move some place where that isn't the case. I find working with people…
What if you're the smartest person in the room and also highly paid? It may be more strategic to stay put, save as much as possible, and spend your time getting intellectual stimulation outside of work.
I don't necessarily disagree. However, it sounded like OP was already doing a lot to get intellectual stimulation outside of work. He specifically mentioned not learning much on the job any more so that's why I recommended looking into a new job.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay sharp?
#80I think the reason for this is not only the obvious "young brains learn faster" but also different hormone levels, ego and so on. When you are younger, you overestimate your skills and take on things that are actually above your level. Once you get older you start thinking more realistic about your skill-set and realize that other people are smart, too. You become better at estimating how much time a given task might take and you realize that you have other things to do.
The problem is, you cannot grow if you do not push yourself to the next level.
Practising something you already kind of know how to do will mainly optimize speed and avoiding mistakes and will let you plateau slightly above your current level. To really advance at something you have to take on tasks that are out of your comfort zone. You can then reapply the learned skills and concepts back to other areas.
I think you have to actively massage your brain to prevent it from stagnating and freezing the algorithms it applies the most. It think we are blessed to work in a field that is conceptually challenging enough that we can actually observe this. In another area you would just wake up one day saying stuff old people say :D