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Experts have it easy (2024)

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Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#11

Post by philipswood »

elcritch wrote: post #9
edelbitter wrote: post #5

> unguided “water-cooler” interaction This meme needs to stop. Knowledge transfer from experts to novices is way too important to be left to chance. And thanks to pre-pivot StackOverflow we even have considerable data on how much better it can be done, at least for white collar industries. Reducing the effort of experts to give advice, and enlarging the audience benefiting from a singular effort to write it down is o…

What? No, those free form unguided interactions are very useful for most novices. They're not a replacement for more structured knowledge teansfer, but an important compliment. Sure some novices are just natural talents that can pick up complex material from structured content alone. They're few though. > The expert’s intuition is often formidable, but rarely comprehensible. This inability to clearly explain their de…

You don't need to wait for AR/VR. For computer work the real space of interaction is currently the screen. Unstructured pair programming for two remotes with a shared screen and audio and chat is a way more effective interaction than most things you could do together at the office.

Even better if both of you have two screens - so besides the shared space, you have a separate work area where you can Google things, ask the AI, spelunk the codebase for related relevant features or try one-liners.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#12

Post by philipswood »

MichaelRo wrote: post #8

As a "senior" (expert) software developer you got a slight edge over a junior as long as you work in the same domain of expertise. As soon as you change project, you're at loss. General intelligence helps but can't make up for domain-specific expertise. Example: move from accounting software to map navigation software. Clueless. Move from map navigation software to financial software. Within financial software move f…

The edge is not slight. And usually in a new domain you're usually not completely clueless. There is value in growing a truly deep expertise by spending a lot of time in one domain, but a lot of the deeper skills do transfer (or partially transfer) and having mastered a few domains tend to give you deeper meta-skills.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#13

Post by harrall »

MichaelRo wrote: post #8

As a "senior" (expert) software developer you got a slight edge over a junior as long as you work in the same domain of expertise. As soon as you change project, you're at loss. General intelligence helps but can't make up for domain-specific expertise. Example: move from accounting software to map navigation software. Clueless. Move from map navigation software to financial software. Within financial software move f…

While that is true, you also end up learning foundational concepts which are frequently common between fields. You get a major head start when learning.

For example, when learning electrical engineering, you might be forced to get good at vector calculus, and then when you move over to mapping software or physical chemistry, it turns out you use the same vector calculus.

The application of vector calculus might vary but it sure takes way longer to learn vector calculus than to learn how to apply it differently.

Vector calculus probably isn’t the best example but you get what I mean. I just find juniors learn new things so slowly. Hell, when I look back at my university days, it took me a long time to learn anything compared to now.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#14

Post by xlii »

MichaelRo wrote: post #8

As a "senior" (expert) software developer you got a slight edge over a junior as long as you work in the same domain of expertise. As soon as you change project, you're at loss. General intelligence helps but can't make up for domain-specific expertise. Example: move from accounting software to map navigation software. Clueless. Move from map navigation software to financial software. Within financial software move f…

I disagree, because in high specialty domains you even cannot reuse knowledge as it might be proprietary.

On the other hand patterns are universal. You sit in a meeting where someone raises problem of „database slow, we have 50M of log entries, we need to delete them” and all the familiarity bells already ring.

The open domain knowledge IMO is something that can be extracted from LLMs. Ask LLM for disk-based data cache and it will happily provide. But it won’t ask how many writers or readers you have. For me even imagining this scenario makes my spidey sense tingling.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#15

Post by cenamus »

greazy wrote: post #7
pixl97 wrote: post #4

Taking mechanical stuff apart and fixing it is one of these areas. One of the more recent ones I watched is taking apart large wenches on a bulldozer. There is a metal plate with two bolts on it you have to take off. If you don't know what you're doing you take both bolts out and it flies apart losing stuff because there is a spring behind the mechanism. If you know what you're doing you take out one bolt then put in…

Would that not be documented by the manufacturer somewhere?

Of course, but most people don't have the manuals if they're fixing half broken rusty old winches

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#16

Post by travisgriggs »

pixl97 wrote: post #4

Taking mechanical stuff apart and fixing it is one of these areas. One of the more recent ones I watched is taking apart large wenches on a bulldozer. There is a metal plate with two bolts on it you have to take off. If you don't know what you're doing you take both bolts out and it flies apart losing stuff because there is a spring behind the mechanism. If you know what you're doing you take out one bolt then put in…

I miss programming languages that fit this model. I remember learning how Dictionary/Map hashing by just putting

d := Dictionary new. d at: 13 put: 42. d at: 5 put: 7. d at: 13 put: 57.

in a workspace and hitting ‘debug it’.

Modern programming ecosystems make this type of learn by discovery/exploration so much harder.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#17

Post by asplake »

edelbitter wrote: post #5

> unguided “water-cooler” interaction This meme needs to stop. Knowledge transfer from experts to novices is way too important to be left to chance. And thanks to pre-pivot StackOverflow we even have considerable data on how much better it can be done, at least for white collar industries. Reducing the effort of experts to give advice, and enlarging the audience benefiting from a singular effort to write it down is o…

It’s not either/or. No formal process or knowledge management system is so efficient that people won’t from time to time lack the context they need to make good decisions. Informal conversations made possible by seniors making themselves available and present makes up at least part of the shortfall. Moreover, informal conversations can benefit both parties. How many bad strategic decisions are made for want of on-the-ground context?

It’s a well-studied problem. See my recent book “Wholehearted: Engaging with Complexity in the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation”. Or if you prefer original sources to modern takes, note that Stafford Beer followed up Brain of the Firm with Heart of Enterprise. Between the two books, the most significant change in his Viable System Model was to address this issue.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#19

Post by nottorp »

edelbitter wrote: post #5

> unguided “water-cooler” interaction This meme needs to stop. Knowledge transfer from experts to novices is way too important to be left to chance. And thanks to pre-pivot StackOverflow we even have considerable data on how much better it can be done, at least for white collar industries. Reducing the effort of experts to give advice, and enlarging the audience benefiting from a singular effort to write it down is o…

If you only do structured knowledge transfer you get to transfer whatever the expert thinks they should pass on and at best also what the novice thinks they should learn.

Which may or may not be the full expertise.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#20

Post by chneu »

cenamus wrote: post #15
greazy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that not be documented by the manufacturer somewhere?

Of course, but most people don't have the manuals if they're fixing half broken rusty old winches

I was under the impression we were working with large wenches, not winches.
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