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Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

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Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#101

Post by dwaltrip »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #24
johnjohnsmith wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to offer a few decades of perspective on your claim. I've been programming for 30+ years. When I sit down to code, most of the time I've thought through it before even typing and am ~99% confident I won't hit a roadblock. I've spent half my life mastering my programming skills. BUT: I'm a high-level technical lead / product lead, so I only get to write code a few times a month and it is more for stress-relea…

Great perspective. My takeaway is that people today are still overall undereducated. Business skills and corporate strategy should be taught earlier, at the highschool levels, instead of requiring a dedicated MBA.

It seems to me those domains lack a well-defined paradigm that can be taught in a easily digestible way in a classroom environment.

I imagine some of the known valuable skills can be taught to a certain degree. Problem-solving, learning how to learn, assessing opportunities, looking for inefficiencies, communication, telling a compelling narrative, and so on. But I don't think it is easy to teach those things in a highly effective manner, at least not in a short amount of time.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#103

Post by drieddust »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38
davnicwil wrote: post #26

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

Exactly where they would have been if they were born in Afghanistan. Probably maimed or dead.

I have asked this question to myself repeatedly and never arrived at satisfactory answer.

What pisses me off is the shear intellectual dishonesty with which these successes are reported.

Growing up my parents would always give references to such stories and make us feel how lazy we were for not succeeding like those kids.

Those who come from humble background can still make it big but only when all the stars align for them and they are too constrained to only do that one thing.

Rags to riches opportunities are risky bets and only those who can either afford the loss or don't have anything to lose and don't have any other opportunities apart from that one bet wins.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#104

Post by gaius »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38
davnicwil wrote: post #26

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

When you come from privilege, it's much easier to have confidence that things will work out.

It’s not just that, it’s that confidence is taught to certain classes. If you know anyone who went to “public” (i.e. private) school they all seem to have this relaxed, easygoing charm. Do they consistently make better decisions than anyone else? No, they skip straight to giving the appearance of someone who does, and it’s amazing how effective it is.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#105

Post by koonsolo »

B0btheBuilder wrote: post #38
davnicwil wrote: post #26

I'm always really impressed by young people, early in their careers or without any career experience at all, who intuit this and are confident in their convictions and get stuff done despite their inexperience. When I was young I was convinced that life beyond academia in all fields would be this super serious, mega competitive space where most everyone has everything figured out. That everyone who was there, in any…

Zuckerberg's mom's a psychiatrist and his dad's a dentist. His dad taught him BASIC programming as a kid and then hired a software engineer as his tutor. Gates' dad's a prominent lawyer and his mom was a prominent businesswoman on the board of directors on several different organizations. Not only did Gates learn programming as a kid, but Microsoft only got on IBM computers because his mom knew IBM executives. When y…

You are 100% correct. So the lesson is: success is built over multiple generations.

I think you can do this in about 2-3 generations. So if you're not primed for success, you can work hard and kickstart the success of your kids.

Of course, lot's of tragedy occurs here when kids don't live up to parents expectations.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#106

Post by bionsystem »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #63
yelloweyes wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the classic Gates/Jobs/Zuckerberg etc, is not actually what they did but that they had the sheer temerity to do it at that age without first building their confidence in industry for a few years. They are/were all known for being very arrogant people. Just because some of them become billionaires doesn't mean everyone should be like that. > How did they have the confidence to hold their own when confronted with suc…

By building something that runs the world, Linux won the debate. Tanenbaum is revealed as an ivory-tower guy with strong opinions, but who only built a toy. By building Linux into what it is, Torvolds proved that a monolithic kernel works just fine.

Plot twist : Tanenbaum's microkernel design that he argues for vs Linus actually runs on every Intel cpu (as minix 3), and thus is technically the most used operating system in the world.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#107

Post by kthejoker2 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #68
antonvs wrote: post #9

This is projection by people who are untrained in what they do. Competent people with good training in some discipline are able to apply that training to competently achieve goals. This allows them to apply knowledge that they didn't develop themselves by trial and error, and is much more efficient, with better outcomes than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule. A…

I agree a little bit, but I think you're swinging the pendulum a little far the other way. I work in a highly regulated area with consequences similar to "bridges falling down", and guess what? At an individual level, everyone is still winging it. What we do have though is a lot of processes: mandated things like checklists, written down procedures, standards that we work to and second-checking by peer or senior coll…

This is what I came here to post. We have checklists and processes specifically to thwart "winging it" and

1. It's amazing how many people ignore those checklists and processes in the name of winging it, and

2. It's amazing how despite dozens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of people-years in an organization, sometimes there's still no checklist or process and winging it is all they've got.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#108

Post by elmozyz »

gammateam wrote: post #87
znpy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, so much. Not to undermine their success, but people tend to skip where their success come from, besides brightness. I mean, you can be as bright as possible, but of course if your parents are the first one investing on you (investing cash, I mean) then everything it's a lot easier. This happens at various levels of course. I recently had a conversation with an ex-colleague that had just left the company and was…

Just respect people who played the cards they were dealt Who applied themselves For every entrepreneur that had a shortcut, there are 1,000s of trust fund kids that vegetate Its not about your struggle, keep applying yourself The society benefits

Exactly. Privilege is just as much a hindrance as lack of opportunity.

How many families with the Zuckerberg and Gates level of privilege produced nothing significant

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#109

Post by lapnitnelav »

zmmmmm wrote: post #68
antonvs wrote: post #9

This is projection by people who are untrained in what they do. Competent people with good training in some discipline are able to apply that training to competently achieve goals. This allows them to apply knowledge that they didn't develop themselves by trial and error, and is much more efficient, with better outcomes than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this often seems to be the exception rather than the rule. A…

I agree a little bit, but I think you're swinging the pendulum a little far the other way. I work in a highly regulated area with consequences similar to "bridges falling down", and guess what? At an individual level, everyone is still winging it. What we do have though is a lot of processes: mandated things like checklists, written down procedures, standards that we work to and second-checking by peer or senior coll…

I relate to this so much. I work in one of those regulated areas (finance).

Your comment has given me a new perspective on what I consider a developer hostile environment.

Re: Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time (2014)

#110

Post by joenathanone »

fphhotchips wrote: post #96
ardit33 wrote: post #13

And that is not true at all, especially in sports. When you just starting playing a new sport, you are still learning and going along while making a lot of mistakes. After few years of playing you learn enough (by experience or training), to know what to do and how to act. (think shooting dribling, positioning in soccer). If you played your 'younger' self, you'd run circle around that person. Hence training and exper…

I'd argue sports is the exact example where not only is everyone winging it, but where you must wing it to be successful. How good you are at winging it is defined by your training, but in a competitive situation, if you're not constantly improvising to match the current state of play, then your play will be entirely predictable and as a result you'll be easily beaten. Think about a football team that runs one of thr…

There is an element of winging it in every profession but not 'totally' winging it. Experience, training and practice matter.
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