HN: The distress of a young padawan. (rant) • Hacker News Board

Re: HN: The distress of a young padawan. (rant)

#11

Post by Arkanin » Sat, Mar 27, 2010, 12:05 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #5

Yes. (puts on coach uniform) I started with nothing -- no degree, no money, no job, no home. Nothing. Here's what you do: forget the role models and mentors. By the time you find them life will have passed you by. Or you'll get one and he/she will turn out to be a dud. Instead learn to read boring books. Not only read them, but learn to read them and get something out of them. Then go on a reading spree. Pick a topic…

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try that. 6-10 books. OK. I can do that in 4 months.

First topic: learning, memory & reading comprehension techniques. Then change habits. I have a couple books already.

Re: HN: The distress of a young padawan. (rant)

#12

Post by scorpioxy » Sat, Mar 27, 2010, 3:15 PM UTC

Welcome to the club.

In my opinion, anybody who's trying to become better at what they do probably start out feeling this way. I know I did, and I still do sometimes.

Your level of skill and the fact that you're working hard at becoming better at this is what will earn you respect among people. Nobody worthwhile will dismiss you because you're just starting out. Nobody was born knowing this stuff, they all worked hard to it.

I can certainly relate to not being content with your current position. Knowing fully that you don't have to exert a lot of effort to become good. Its not enough, you want to become great. Uncontrolled, this can become destructive behavior though, so watch out.

Personally, I think you're on the right path. Just remember to stop and smell the roses every once in a while.

Re: HN: The distress of a young padawan. (rant)

#13

Post by scorpioxy » Sat, Mar 27, 2010, 3:19 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

sz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a starting point: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-m...

Code Complete rocks. It's easily in the top 20 books for any developer. Maybe top 5 Having said that, remember the idea is to stick with a theme, so if you choose good coding, do "Clean Code" by Uncle Bob a few other books along the same lines.

Offtopic, but you know I never really thought Code Complete was that inspirational. But that's probably because i read it after having worked for a few years in the industry and seeing my fair share of bad code and legacy systems.

Of course it was still a good read, and the topics covered were well researched, but not really a life changer for me. Did anyone else feel the same way? It seems that everywhere I go, people say this is THE book to read.

Re: HN: The distress of a young padawan. (rant)

#14

Post by Arkanin » Fri, Apr 02, 2010, 2:06 PM UTC

regularfry wrote: post #9

"I feel like if my IQ was in the genius instead of just very bright range or if I graduated from MIT instead of a Tech school, I could someday..." Stop that. Right now. Many of the great people you look up to aren't smarter than you, many of them didn't go to the right college. They just worked hard, and worked smart, for long enough. What you're doing here is identifying an external excuse to psychologically allow y…

I just want to say you're right. For some reason the up arrow is gone and I can't upvote you. But you're right.

If I am reasonably bright, I am capable of learning if I work hard. I don't have an excuse to fail. Period. There are reasons promising people fail -- they realize, perhaps, that they aren't going after what they really want, or a serious external crisis occurs, or they feel entitled because everyone used to tell them they're smart -- but as long as I am aware of, there are no excuses for falling into those traps.