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I have no idea what I'm doing

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Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#11

Post by engendered »

[deleted] wrote: post #10
engendered wrote: post #3

This sort of post seems to do well on HN, so to offer a bit of criticism I'd like to posit that often they seem to be a thin veneer over humble bragging. e.g. I don't know what I'm doing, but then neither does anyone else but I am stating it so therefore I'm actually better than them and I have impostor syndrome so that actually makes me better at what I do than you, and everyone who says they know what they're doing…

[deleted]

Or maybe your value/worth as a developer is measured by what you achieve/what you do, and not by constantly trying to jockey relative to everyone else? The constant procession of "PR for why I'm actually better than everyone else" thing is transparent, yet HN falls for it day after day.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#13

Post by jarcane »

treehau5 wrote: post #4

Hey Tom, I just want to say, I have your book, and I find it wonderful.

Was really sad to hear this: "You don’t really make any money by writing a book, but O’Reilly did send me a nice hat"

How poorly does O'Reilly pay their authors? A book the size of most of their tomes, and at the prices they charge, should be a 5-figure advance in any other part of the industry.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#14

Post by serve_yay »

wyager wrote: post #12

This guy seems to confuse "I sometimes have to think about things" with "I have no idea what I'm doing". Those seem quite different to me.

Indeed. Working on something for a long time but claiming you have no idea what you're doing is an easy way of not appearing egomaniacal or vain. Especially in our field, when people can be such pompous dickheads.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#15

Post by senthil_rajasek »

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it."

I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy.

Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver#Dams

They may have poor eyesight but they have a keen sense of hearing.

May be he meant that the Beaver does not know why its teeth grow continuously but it uses it to cut down trees and make dams.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#16

Post by javajosh »

>Nobody knows what they’re doing; ignorance fuels creativity; complex systems are built iteratively. Those are the ideas I want you to remember.

Really liked this piece and wanted to add something to it that I hope resonates with HN. I have myself run across all of this, particularly the complexity part, and have heard anecdotal evidence from others that I know, that when one finishes a function or a library of moderate complexity, and you step back from it for a while, and you come back to it, it looks really impressive. It's now no longer something that can be grokked at a glance. It looks complicated, with all kinds of persnickety details. You remember the "why" of certain unintuitive parts - evidence of problems you ran into and had to solve. The code is the product of many hours of iteration - and the code expanded, contracted, and settled into the shape it's currently in - a shape which, if presented to your earlier self, you would say "I created that? Gosh, it looks like something a professional programmer might have made." (or it might look like a horrendous hacky mess, of course.)

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#17

Post by JoeAltmaier »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #15

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it." I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy. Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food.…

Go further - the beaver doesn't know that its building a dam. It just builds because it feels compelled to. Then when the dam is done (the beaver triggers on the sound of water falling and stops when the sound is gone) the beaver reaps some benefit.

Over millions of years, beavers that behaved like this prospered. The beaver doesn't know why or even think about it. No more than you think about your particular cell enzyme reactions.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#18

Post by sanderjd »

jarcane wrote: post #13
treehau5 wrote: post #4

Hey Tom, I just want to say, I have your book, and I find it wonderful.

Was really sad to hear this: "You don’t really make any money by writing a book, but O’Reilly did send me a nice hat" How poorly does O'Reilly pay their authors? A book the size of most of their tomes, and at the prices they charge, should be a 5-figure advance in any other part of the industry.

Curious about this too. I wonder if he means that you don't really make any money compared to the opportunity cost of all the hours you spend on it, or if you really don't make any money in an absolute sense. Unfortunately, I suspect it's actually the latter due to the relatively tiny size of the target market for such books.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#19

Post by javajosh »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #15

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it." I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy. Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food.…

>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height.

My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision. One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway. It's just what he does.

Do humans eat to keep from starving? Do we have sex to have babies? Do we love our babies so that they don't die? I don't think so. We do these things because it's built into us to do them, just like the beaver.

Re: I have no idea what I'm doing

#20

Post by pm90 »

javajosh wrote: post #19
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #15

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it." I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy. Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food.…

>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision . One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but…

Sex seems a lot more simple than building a dam though. I mean, how does the Beaver even know this kind of stuff? Is it in its genetic material, or is it taught by its parents?

Either way, fascinating stuff.

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