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You must read at least one book to ride

ludic.mataroa.blog

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Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#51

Post by cj »

deergomoo wrote: post #39

> Then there are engineers [...] who never try for the entirety of their careers This matches my experience 100%. I am not a brilliant developer by any measure. I'm competent enough, I can put together good solutions to the admittedly low-scale problems I'm assigned, and I like to think I have a pretty good sense for the right and wrong ways of going about doing so. But I'm not even sure I could land an interview wit…

An engineer I work with told me “I don’t think I’m a rockstar engineer, but I put care into what I do, and I think that makes up for not being a rockstar”

Even though she doesn’t realize it, she’s the rockstar on our team.

In your examples it sounds like your coworkers didn’t put much care into what they were doing.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#52

Post by strken »

skybrian wrote: post #29

He's a good writer, but I think he underestimates the implicit skills that an experienced engineer has that beginners don't have. Sometimes it just seems like common sense, but it isn't, and the result is often a lack of empathy. To build up that empathy, being around children or the elderly probably helps. Also, helping a relative who is struggling but you're on their side . Also consider the difference between a na…

I started programming at age eight, while my brother started in his 20s. Teaching him to write C was an eye-opening experience because it showed how much I rely on vibe and feelings. He struggled with things I take for granted, like indenting his code consistently, or actually reading error messages from the compiler and using them for debugging.

It took him a couple of years to get to the point where he could get a job as a programmer. This isn't surprising, because it also took me a couple of years. I had just forgotten where my starting point was.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#53

Post by duggan »

deergomoo wrote: post #39

> Then there are engineers [...] who never try for the entirety of their careers This matches my experience 100%. I am not a brilliant developer by any measure. I'm competent enough, I can put together good solutions to the admittedly low-scale problems I'm assigned, and I like to think I have a pretty good sense for the right and wrong ways of going about doing so. But I'm not even sure I could land an interview wit…

> Have I just had the misfortune of working at particularly crappy companies, or are things really this bad across the whole industry?

It's not universal, but you might have to do a lot of searching. Personally, I think it's easier to find the right people in smaller companies, mostly because it's harder to hide in the crowd that way, but there are clever, dedicated people in companies of all sizes.

You'll do ok. Keep the fire burning, and keep looking for people who either share your principles, or respect them.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#54

Post by dasil003 »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #17
majormajor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big gap between "doesn't care" and "wants to learn more" but there's ALSO a big gap betweeen "wants to learn more" and "actually learns more." The post touches on this with "how do you know which books to read" but I think it's incredibly important to stress the motivation/execution part too of actually reading, learning, and practicing the new things .

This is just semantics I think. Certainly some people may express a desire to learn but not be able to motivate themselves to read a book. However people who actually want to learn are intrinsically motivated to read and don't fall into that group.

Certainly some of this is a question of degree (eg. motivation to read a blog post versus a longer, more comprehensive book), but the gap between reading and practicing is real and very important. Just as the OA is referring to practitioners who are too lazy to pick up a book, you also have people who go the opposite way and spend all their energy reading and theorizing without putting anything into practice.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#55

Post by pfoof »

I try to read at least 16 books a year (usually it turns out to be more). I cannot stress enough how much this helped me increase my skills.

One example: The Go Programming Language. I tried using Go several years back after using Java for years and my experience was horrible. Then I read this book and I understood the philosophy behind Go, followed all exercises. Am I Go expert? Far from it. But I am proficient enough to write my own tools or contribute small fixes to other teams at work efficiently.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#56

Post by aksss »

ksubedi wrote: post #8

Starting to read again has significantly increased my attention span and ability to focus. It has also made me crave doom scrolling less.

Underrated habit - Even for people without diagnosed ADHD, there's a skill aspect to deep focus that is developed through experience and discipline. Habit is a shortcut to discipline.

What a lot of people see in themselves as ADHD is at least compounded by underdeveloped and (willfully) neglected skill in being able to focus. Not saying all, so chill everyone. But if you have self or professionally diagnosed ADHD, do you "exercise" and build your focusing muscles regularly by engaging in tasks that require focused attention? Do you discipline yourself away from the junk (doom scrolling, short video consumption)? Or like someone who is a servant of their affliction do you avoid what's hard and indulge in these behaviors that reinforce the problem?

TL;DR: The ability to focus is a perishable skill for everyone.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#57

Post by senkora »

yellow_lead wrote: post #21

The section about reading "the right books" is important. I tried reading some self-help books in high school, but after reading a few, you'll realize they are mostly "fanfic" as the author says. I noticed some other patterns in these books. 1. Constant self-questioning while reading - "Is this obvious? did I already know this?" 2. Lots of examples or stories 3. Try to turn a simple metaphor/slogan into a complete ph…

The main issue that I have with self-help and pop-business books is that they are always way too long. They are forced to be because "books" are expected to be a certain length.

There's always one or two good ideas that you get early in the book, and then the rest is repetition and filler.

Because this issue is so common, I think that it actually is okay to just listen to a youtube video summary of most of these books.

My other trick is to always get the first edition version of the book; they tend to be shorter and clearer.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#58

Post by what-the-grump »

deergomoo wrote: post #39

> Then there are engineers [...] who never try for the entirety of their careers This matches my experience 100%. I am not a brilliant developer by any measure. I'm competent enough, I can put together good solutions to the admittedly low-scale problems I'm assigned, and I like to think I have a pretty good sense for the right and wrong ways of going about doing so. But I'm not even sure I could land an interview wit…

You likely work at the top of the food chain in your IT structure as a result? You put care into your work and get results, people leave you alone?

I am the person everyone calls when things hit the fan, when disagreements need to be settled, when unfixable things need to be fixed, when something needs to be figured out. Do I feel qualified, never, no. I don't feel I'd last one day at say Facebook, no chance, I don't have skills to fit into a team, to play nice, the patience needed to grind the political structures. I like my dark corner.

Is it this bad across the industry? Its way worse, there are more people in the industry than ever, finding someone that actually knows something is impossible.

Build a book of people over 5–10 year period and never, ever letting go of them, keeping those relationships alive.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#59

Post by righthand »

idoubtit wrote: post #47
righthand wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnod is the classic reccomendation engine that works great and doesn’t harvest your data. It has a search for books: https://www.gnooks.com/faves.php General Gnod: gnod.com

I was interested in this, but my 3 runs in their recommandations engine were almost complete failures. Their author list is plagued with homonyms.My first search had Dostoievsky in my 3 favorites. He was then recommended twice to me. It seems there are 7 distincts transliterations of his name. Then I put 3 Italian novelists as favorites, starting with Curzio Malaparte. I was first recommended a Scandinavian poet. Oth…

If you go to the gnod homepage, you can see the literature map and it will maybe answer some of your questions. Sounds like you got 2 new recommendations at least already though.

Re: You must read at least one book to ride

#60

Post by deergomoo »

hermitcrab wrote: post #42

I know people like to say "work to live, don't live to work" but I find it quite depressing to work with people who aren't interested in their job and make no serious effort to improve.

This is an ongoing conundrum for me. I feel incredibly fortunate to have a career doing something I enjoy doing and feel a natural compulsion to do the best I can in. But I also view work conceptually as a means to an end that takes up far too much of the years we are most able to make the most of our time on earth.

The square I can’t circle is my belief that it’s fine to make a living how you can without needing personal investment in your work, combined with the absolutely horrid effects that can have on the people who do care. I can’t in good conscience expect my colleagues to be as interested in software as I am, but jesus a lot of the time I wish the average level of interest was a lot higher than it seems to be.

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