Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 424 posts

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#181

Post by Izkata »

loves_mangoes wrote: post #29

All those little bits of knowledge are nice tools and patterns, they're definitely good to have. And if you have curiosity, you will naturally keep learning dozens of those over time. But they are not applicable everywhere, so you should not expect your 8 hour days to turn into 48 minutes because you started using regexes, dynamic programming, and search algorithms everywhere. The unlikable and unhelpful answer, but…

> The only 10x differences that genuinely exist are between people who are 2x faster than average and people who are 5x worse.

The original idea of a 10x developer was between best and worst, not best and average.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#183

Post by SamReidHughes »

giantg2 wrote: post #175
SamReidHughes wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. You could call that basic logic... and you'd be wrong, because it's not basic logic.

How so? The comment clearly states that they aren't doing any formal calculations, not using numerical methods, and just getting approximate insights. If I'm wrong, show me I'm wrong and post a substantive comment. Snarky comments like that are not inline with HN guidelines.

It's not a snarky comment, it's literally, not actually basic logic. You had no factual basis for saying it was.

Basic logic is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_logic

Dynamical systems has stuff that is not basic logic such as this topological concept which is applicable in understanding how stuff works without doing an actual calculation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_cycle

That's calculus. Not logic, not philosophy.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#184

Post by copperx »

replyifuagree wrote: post #96
futureshock wrote: post #21

I think the true 10x multiplier is not a technical skill at all. It is the ability to quickly cut through irrelevant tasks and actions to focus on the thing that will move the business goal forward fastest. It is enshrined in the concept of the MVP and the short iteration cycle. Quicky building something that does not solve a business problem is not productive. Work=force*displacement. No movement, no work. A closely…

This. Which isn't to say that technical knowledge doesn't matter, it truly does. But, the primary problem in the industry right now is that the majority of finished code generated by professionals goes unused. The amount of waste is staggering. Working on the right thing is way more than a 10x multiplier.

> the majority of finished code generated by professionals goes unused

What are you referring to?

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#185

Post by jp42 »

rsync wrote: post #150

Here’s one that can be widely applied - from inside the cpu to your daily commute: context switches are expensive … and yes, sometimes so expensive that not knowing this might, indeed, have a 10x penalty.

Can someone care to elaborate more on this?

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#186

Post by Ancapistani »

adampk wrote: post #15

Not technical but the self-knowledge of how to put yourself in a productive state. Knowing how to sleep well, eat well, exercise well to allow yourself to perform at a sustained high-level. Someone may be more technically competent at a problem-space (at the start), but if you are able to work diligently at the problem over a sustained period, you will have 10x better results than those who crash/burnout/lose interes…

As someone who struggles with ADHD and depression, this isn’t always possible.

At 38 years old, what I have discovered are ways to make myself valuable to my employer even when I’m not at my peak. The move to a more “architectural” role has been a Godsend for me. It means that I’m a let to serve to some degree in an advisory capacity for others. When I’m not able to enter “flow” with my primary project, I can usually find someone else with a problem that they’re struggling on, pair up with them, and help them get over whatever is in their way. This makes the team as a whole significantly more productive.

As a bonus, I often find that focusing on a problem of short duration helps me overcome the mental barriers to becoming engaged in my work and lets me get done what I was struggling not to avoid doing in the first place.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#187

Post by sanderjd »

giantg2 wrote: post #154
softwarebeware wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looks like a paywall. That's odd. It loads up just fine for me with no paywall. Check this out for more: https://allusesof.com/math/51-amazing-uses-of-calculus-in-re... The point is that calculus is used to solve all sorts of problems. Sure, you can say "...not in my experience" but that's one experience and not representative. You just happen to a) not work in a realm where Calculus is used and/or b) work within t…

I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying that it isn't commonly used. Objectively, a great majority of people can live their lives without even thinking about or performing calculus outside of the classroom. That is why I questioned whether knowing calculus is really a piece of fundamental knowledge that allows a 10x performance increase. For the majority of people it's not going to help them. Even if they deal wi…

The way I would put this is that it's important to be familiar with calculus, to know that it exists and have a sense of where it tends to pop up. From that familiarity, you can look up the details on demand. But being entirely unaware of the techniques of calculus would probably be hindrance.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#188

Post by pcmoney »

wittycardio wrote: post #156
exdsq wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this idea. You don’t need to be at the top 1% of a field to do cool innovate stuff, just be good at two or three different fields and see what happens when you combine them. Currently going down this rabbit hole with computational archaeology and having a whale of a time :)

This is complete bs, real innovation happens exclusively in the top 1 percent of the field. This is just coolaid that some people like to drink to de emphasize the value of real skill and inflate their own egos.

They aren't talking about innovation but productivity. The OP asked "what bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers" this should hold true at whatever percentile of a field you chose, top 1%, 10% etc. However, it should be noted that the top 1% of innovators in a given field often do not understand the impact of their innovation on a multi-disciplinary or business context.

Re: Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

#189

Post by sanderjd »

jstx1 wrote: post #3

Most of these aren't really productivity multipliers, they just enable you to do the thing you need to do. It's unlikely that someone is doing task A without any calculus but another person who uses calculus is 10x more productive on the same task.

This is well put. It gets to my ambivalent response to this list. Understanding parsers is important ... if you're parsing things. Etc.
Post reply on HN