John Carmack: Career Advice • Hacker News Board

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#41

Post by swyx » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #4

person_of_color wrote: post #2

Survivorship bias. Not everyone has the opportunity to be a programming geek at the beginning of a new era of PC gaming.

It's always good to be aware of biases in people viewpoints when considering their advice but I'm not sure that's that applicable in this case because he's advocating people don't do what he did essentially. It's also as far as these things go pretty mediocre and obvious advice. The majority of the games industry today is focused on using and customizing a reasonably small set of tools rather than writing their own.…

is it mediocre if it's true? sometimes good advice is just truth stated simply.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#42

Post by amitranade » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

patrec wrote: post #20

st1x7 wrote: post #8

Can anyone elaborate on what Carmack is suggesting here? To specialise in some tool early in your career? Or something else? I don't quite get it. (Or at least I don't get why it would be such a good idea.) Carmack is usually great to listen to, by the way; check out some of his interviews or talks if you haven't before.

I think his argument is fairly simple: 1. Learning (fundamental) stuff deeply is the way to become great. 2. But knowing how stuff works fundamentally at an abstract level (e.g. being able to write your own toy OS) is not directly economically useful (and/or very time consuming to get to that stage). So it won't get you a job. 3. So for starters learn just one thing that people actually use (say git) deeply at a conc…

Nice explanation. MIT’s “The Missing Semester of Your CS Education” attempts to address some of your points https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#43

Post by swyx » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #27

daodedickinson wrote: post #13

I just need a relationship, being alone for this many decades is poison... I can learn anything but when the profs at my grad program openly didn't care about me WTF was I supposed to do? How do I meet someone to build a relationship now that buoweapons have made it illegal where I live? WTF AM I SUPPOSSED TO DO WITH MY LIFE'S SENSORY INPUT!?!?!

Hello! Feel free to DM me on twitter to talk. (I'm @theshawwn) I noticed some of your other comments, like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23737849 . If you're 20-something, just remember that life is pretty much supposed to feel listless. No one really knows what they're doing until they figure out what they want. And figuring out what you want is often very hard.

very kind of you to offer help where most of us down vote. this person does seem like they need someone to talk to.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#44

Post by antupis » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

hvasilev wrote: post #5

Tools change, fundamentals don't. I disagree that you should modify what you should learn in order to start contributing as fast as possible to a team. I think that the advice that he gave was a bad one.

Thing is that when you master that tool deeply you also get fundamentals. Lets use deep learning example when you master something like pytorch deeply you also understand fundamentals like how automatic differentiation works etc.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#45

Post by swyx » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

Iv wrote: post #39

John Carmack's path is highly unusual. I highly regard the person but would not take on his experience as career advice.

ah the irony of career advice. we only care to hear advice from successful people but the successful people are exceptions.

this is why I focus on generalized principles in my writing. all personal success is anecdotal but we should not let that stop us from trying to discover generalizable truths by induction and deduction.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#46

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

st1x7 wrote: post #8

Can anyone elaborate on what Carmack is suggesting here? To specialise in some tool early in your career? Or something else? I don't quite get it. (Or at least I don't get why it would be such a good idea.) Carmack is usually great to listen to, by the way; check out some of his interviews or talks if you haven't before.

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." - Ben Franklin

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#47

Post by icelancer » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

Koiwai wrote: post #26

To be honest, getting career advice from John Carmack is just like getting career advice from a lotto winner, not everyone has the luck/genius.

Depends on what part you listen to. Carmack's work ethic is legendary and ability to output high volumes and exceptional work are things a lot of people can aspire to, especially startup entrepreneurs. I certainly have taken those words to heart in my business.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#48

Post by wegs » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

hvasilev wrote: post #5

Tools change, fundamentals don't. I disagree that you should modify what you should learn in order to start contributing as fast as possible to a team. I think that the advice that he gave was a bad one.

I think his point was that good tools are built with deep fundamentals.

* If you've mastered git commands, you haven't followed Carmack's advice.

* If you've used git as a domain to understand key-value stores, Merkle trees, hash functions, and network theory, you have followed Carmack's advice.

Or another example:

* If you've mastered using a gaming library to move characters around and memorized APIs, you haven't followed Carmack's advice

* If you've mastered a game library to understand 3d transformation matrices, GPGU, and simulations of physics, you have.

A tool can point you to an aligned, coherent set of fundamentals which also work together to make a package useful for employment.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#49

Post by dcastm » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

davidn20 wrote: post #38

There seems to be a few comments on survivorship bias and luck. I want to address those. While, yes it takes a lot of luck to be at the pinnacle of success. Their advice shouldn't be discounted. No one lucks their way to the top of the mountain. You can't control the weather, but you still have to climb the damn mountain. It's a combination of wisdom, hard work, and luck. A lottery winner brings nothing to the table.…

I think of it like this: In the the short term, luck might be sufficient to put you at the top of your field. Over the long term, luck is necessary but not sufficient.

Re: John Carmack: Career Advice

#50

Post by simonh » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

patrec wrote: post #20

st1x7 wrote: post #8

Can anyone elaborate on what Carmack is suggesting here? To specialise in some tool early in your career? Or something else? I don't quite get it. (Or at least I don't get why it would be such a good idea.) Carmack is usually great to listen to, by the way; check out some of his interviews or talks if you haven't before.

I think his argument is fairly simple: 1. Learning (fundamental) stuff deeply is the way to become great. 2. But knowing how stuff works fundamentally at an abstract level (e.g. being able to write your own toy OS) is not directly economically useful (and/or very time consuming to get to that stage). So it won't get you a job. 3. So for starters learn just one thing that people actually use (say git) deeply at a conc…

This closely matches advice I've been giving to new hires and team members for years. When you join a new team look for the gaps, what isn't getting done or what will benefit the team most and fill that gap. You're not going to compete with the current guru of this or that, so learn from them for sure but that's not going to mark you out.

The only down side is there are often reasons those gaps are there, but it's just time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. It's an approach I've taken every time I've joined a team and it worked well for me.