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Be prolific

chrismytton.com

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Re: Be prolific

#11

Post by ChrisRackauckas »

When teaching mathematics I like to always mention that the greats like Ramanujan, while it seems like they just knew everything from pure thought, they all actually did a ton of work by hand. Ramanujan in particular is known for his fastidious notebooks calculating thousands of digits numbers like pi. From writing out the calculations for hours and days, he'd come up with simplification formulas and develop new insights. These days, we have a tendency to just look at the formula and go "wow, how the heck did the think of that?" Well, what we would call "busy work".

Do the busy work. Do the calculations. Write it all out. Nobody is better than the busy work: it pays off and it's how you learn.

Re: Be prolific

#12

Post by saberdancer »

lqet wrote: post #6
_Microft wrote: post #4

I'm reasonably sure that it was a pottery class (or study) in which students/study participants were asked to produce either the best piece they could think of or as many as possible. I think it was actually a study that I read about. It might need some internet sleuthing to find it. I'll try later. I do not think that it is surprising that practice improves skills though (well, except for people with an exceptionall…

Here is an article discussing this: https://medium.com/swlh/the-science-backed-secret-to-rapidly... > On the first day of the class, the ceramics teacher divided the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the class, he announced, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. > The works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative desi…

It's an anecdote which could be completely fabricated, I'd expect it is since the source seems to be a book where it is mentioned as story with no names.

If anyone has some kind of study or more concrete example, I'd love to hear about it.

Re: Be prolific

#13

Post by tucuman87 »

Meanwhile in academy everyone is complaining on the pressure to publish fast on expense of quality.... Maybe this judging on quantity isn't totally bad?

Re: Be prolific

#14

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

This has always been my own basic approach. I am constantly writing stuff.

More importantly, I’m constantly writing different stuff. I write about that here: https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/thats-not-what-ships-are-...

The iteration definitely helps me to be a better engineer. Also, pretty much every day, I start off with an issue ahead of me that I’m afraid of, and am not sure how to solve.

I often have several problems solved by 7AM.

Re: Be prolific

#15

Post by terse_malvolio »

In a way I feel like quality vs quantity is a false dichotomy. What's important is deliberate practice, which can be deficient in either.

Is it worth doing 100 reps in the gym if they're all with bad form? It's better to solve the same problem in 5 ways or 5 different problems once?

Re: Be prolific

#16

Post by shannifin »

"Quantity leads to quality."

The analogy of being graded on quantity in an art class tends to make me imagine I'd just line up a ton of canvases and slop paint on them all at once to be the top of the class, or create pots in only their crudest acceptable form.

That is, quantity does not lead to quality by itself. The student must be trying to learn something new with each new piece. Quantity iterates the feedback loop. The student still must be able to identify mistakes or areas where improvement is needed. Doing that means paying attention to quality.

So it's not really about ignoring quantity or quality for the sake of the other, but finding a good balance.

Re: Be prolific

#17

Post by ajuc »

saberdancer wrote: post #12
lqet wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an article discussing this: https://medium.com/swlh/the-science-backed-secret-to-rapidly... > On the first day of the class, the ceramics teacher divided the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the class, he announced, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. > The works of highest quality, the most beautiful and creative desi…

It's an anecdote which could be completely fabricated, I'd expect it is since the source seems to be a book where it is mentioned as story with no names. If anyone has some kind of study or more concrete example, I'd love to hear about it.

Unix vs Multix.

Plan 9 and GNU Herd vs Linux.

Spring vs EJB.

Rest vs Soap vs CORBA.

C vs Algol.

It's easier to do something simple and iterate on it than to do something perfect from the start.

Re: Be prolific

#18

Post by xondono »

When presented with this kind of “simple advice”, I always like to think the counter examples.

Quantity is great, unless you are trying to change a paradigm. Iterative learning gets you trapped in local minima, so be sure to aim for quality once in a while.

I would also not take that “experiment” that seriously, because the requirements where obviously different, each class optimized as needed. “Quality” is an abstract concept, and most of the time you are better of saving the time than spending it on “Quality”.

Re: Be prolific

#19

Post by dmos62 »

shannifin wrote: post #16

"Quantity leads to quality." The analogy of being graded on quantity in an art class tends to make me imagine I'd just line up a ton of canvases and slop paint on them all at once to be the top of the class, or create pots in only their crudest acceptable form. That is, quantity does not lead to quality by itself. The student must be trying to learn something new with each new piece. Quantity iterates the feedback lo…

That's a really good insight.

Re: Be prolific

#20

Post by throwawaylolx »

What's the point of these posts? It's an opinion based on nothing else than a hypothetical anecdote. Is it motivational posts for HN readers--is this what "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" these days?
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