Practice Doesn't Make Perfect • Hacker News Board

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#141

Post by CuriouslyC » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 5:40 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #139

CuriouslyC wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the natural variability in potential is such that an average person isn't going to ever get sufficiently good to medal at an olympics, or even attend one (except perhaps in unpopular sports). You shouldn't let the fact that your natural limit is only the 99th percentile instead of the 99.99th percentile make you feel like a failure though, you're still awesome. One thing I have noticed is that some peopl…

I have not found that to be the case in software development. Some people get good very quickly and others are still mediocre after ten years of coding. That doesn't necessarily prove that coding ability is innate, of course, but it at least suggests that effort alone is not enough.

There's an old saying... Some people have 10 years of experience, others have one year repeated 10 times.

If you're running a race, it doesn't matter how much effort you put in if you're going in the wrong direction. In many cases the ones with "talent" are the ones that chose a direction at random that just happened to be roughly correct.

The root of the issue is that most people don't approach learning and skill development in anything even remotely close to a methodical, focused manner. They "just do it" and hope that the magical improvement fairy will sprinkle skill-dust on them while they sleep. Maybe they read a book or some articles from time to time, and occasionally think to apply the things they read, but that is about it. Do you think that these same people would take that approach if someone put a gun to their family and said "master XYZ or they die" ?

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#142

Post by sn9 » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 6:29 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #3

CuriouslyC wrote: post #2

This is a case where I really doubt that the studies referenced in the article were rigorous/well controlled. There are WAY too many talent "hot zones" (small training clubs that produce an extremely inordinate number of champions) for me to be swayed without iron-clad evidence to the contrary. The author talks about being motivated, but I don't think she really understands the scale of motivation. Mozart would typic…

Wouldn't a small, elite training club only take in a relatively small number of athletes that have already shown innate talent? Likewise, top universities will turn out a large number of top scientists. They've already selected for potential at the point of admission.

There are other fairly common examples without that sort of filtering of applicants.

High school academics and athletics are good places to look. Genetics don't explain how a good coach can turn around a school's athletic program to the point of taking a team to the state championship or how a good teacher can take a population of students with a history of failure and dropping out and turn them into students who score 5's on AP calculus exams.

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#143

Post by rhapsodic » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:05 PM UTC

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the book "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle.[1] I play several stringed instruments and applying the concepts in that book has made a huge difference in my rate of progress. He talks a lot about Ericsson's work, and is firmly in the camp that believes that improvement can always be achieved through practice, when the practice is done properly.

[1] http://thetalentcode.com/

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#144

Post by Natanael_L » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

hal9000xp wrote: post #14

I have my own theory. The idea is that there are lots, lots and lots of tiny unspoken things which could make huge difference in long run. And those who successful doesn't necessary know their own tiny things they got right. Let's say there are two persons A and B who is training in chess. Person A trained for X hours and became chess master. Person B trained for 10X hours and didn't get even close to master level. T…

There's a term for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge

Re: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

#145

Post by yourapostasy » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #103

yourapostasy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I worry about the MOOC's: a lot of the best teachers I've had personally, and observed (with children), drew a vast tree of pedagogical techniques, but used their evaluation of a student's individual personality/psychology to inform them of which node/branch to select next. The most sophisticated MOOC's ever get is to brute-force try one node after another, if they support presenting the same material in…

If I may add my 2 cents, I almost never interacted positively with teachers at the College level. Mostly because I became borderline sociophobic tbh. MOOCs removed a big barrier between teacher judgement and politics (they're human, they can be prejudiced). Also gave me way more opportunity to collaborate and exchange with other students (mostly through IRC channels).

Very good point. I strongly suspect as an individual's autodidactic capabilities increase, the need for highly-attuned teachers decreases, and by college-level academics MOOCs may be far more effective in that context. I think ironically however, that the need for high-attuned mentors comes up later, as the academics segues into field practice.