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Experts have it easy (2024)

boydkane.com

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Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#51

Post by beyarkay »

teodorlu wrote: post #27

Any idea where to find the "Hard" and "Expert aesthetics" articles mentioned in the article? The links are giving me 404s. https://boydkane.com/hard https://boydkane.com/expert_aesthetics

(author here) Apologies, I've (maybe mistakenly) put dead links for various essays that are works-in-progress, in order to figure out what to prioritize. I know it's annoying, but it does give me very good signal about what people want to read. For example, 2% of people clicked the essay `/hard`, but only 1% of people have clicked on the essay for `/expert_aesthetics`. So I'm frantically trying to finish `/hard` before a streamer reads the main essay tomorrow.

If I can ask for constructive critique, how annoyed are you? The metrics are really useful to me, but I don't want to be an arsehole <3

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#52

Post by elcritch »

philipswood wrote: post #11
elcritch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? No, those free form unguided interactions are very useful for most novices. They're not a replacement for more structured knowledge teansfer, but an important compliment. Sure some novices are just natural talents that can pick up complex material from structured content alone. They're few though. > The expert’s intuition is often formidable, but rarely comprehensible. This inability to clearly explain their de…

You don't need to wait for AR/VR. For computer work the real space of interaction is currently the screen. Unstructured pair programming for two remotes with a shared screen and audio and chat is a way more effective interaction than most things you could do together at the office. Even better if both of you have two screens - so besides the shared space, you have a separate work area where you can Google things, ask…

Certainly more effective at short term GTD, but less so at sharing intangibles or lowering the barrier to more general or spontaneous communication.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#53

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

MichaelRo wrote: post #8

As a "senior" (expert) software developer you got a slight edge over a junior as long as you work in the same domain of expertise. As soon as you change project, you're at loss. General intelligence helps but can't make up for domain-specific expertise. Example: move from accounting software to map navigation software. Clueless. Move from map navigation software to financial software. Within financial software move f…

I don't agree. Domain-specific expertise is valuable (even essential) but can be learned, and usually rather more easily than learning to become an expert software engineer.

I've worked in a number of almost completely disparate domains over my career, each one needed maybe a year or so to become reasonably knowledgeable on, but it's not the same as resetting back to a complete software novice each time.

Also, the people who have been deeply embedded into a domain for a long time tend to overestimate how much it takes. I've seen exactly this with your example of financial software; yes there is domain knowledge but the clear industry lesson has been that it's far easier for software engineers to learn that than for the domain experts to learn software engineering.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#54

Post by qiine »

joenot443 wrote: post #47

This is a really good article. There's a quality in strong developers which is difficult to select for in an interview but wildly valuable once they're up and running; maybe the best word is "scrappiness". When I interview juniors or interns, one of the questions I like to ask is something like this- "You've got two computer, one Linux one Windows. There's 50gb of files on the Windows machine which need to be moved t…

soOo how do you do it ? ;p

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#55

Post by teodorlu »

beyarkay wrote: post #51
teodorlu wrote: post #27

Any idea where to find the "Hard" and "Expert aesthetics" articles mentioned in the article? The links are giving me 404s. https://boydkane.com/hard https://boydkane.com/expert_aesthetics

(author here) Apologies, I've (maybe mistakenly) put dead links for various essays that are works-in-progress, in order to figure out what to prioritize. I know it's annoying, but it does give me very good signal about what people want to read. For example, 2% of people clicked the essay `/hard`, but only 1% of people have clicked on the essay for `/expert_aesthetics`. So I'm frantically trying to finish `/hard` befo…

Not annoyed. But curious!

I agree that mentoring is hard, and I want to read your take.

I wonder if we agree on expert aesthetics or not. You write:

> Experts tend to have an aesthetic preference towards technically challenging work rather than simple-but-interesting work, and I’ve written more about this phenomenon here: expert aesthetics.

When I read the passage the first time, I thought you meant "experts prefer to work on hard problems in order to arrive at simple solutions". But that's not what you're saying!

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#56

Post by gwern »

beyarkay wrote: post #51
teodorlu wrote: post #27

Any idea where to find the "Hard" and "Expert aesthetics" articles mentioned in the article? The links are giving me 404s. https://boydkane.com/hard https://boydkane.com/expert_aesthetics

(author here) Apologies, I've (maybe mistakenly) put dead links for various essays that are works-in-progress, in order to figure out what to prioritize. I know it's annoying, but it does give me very good signal about what people want to read. For example, 2% of people clicked the essay `/hard`, but only 1% of people have clicked on the essay for `/expert_aesthetics`. So I'm frantically trying to finish `/hard` befo…

> Work in progress (or 404)

I think it would be a lot politer if the target page was clearer. As it is, I could be 'voting' on a draft or it could just be plain broken and the intended page somewhere else.

Personally, I think it would make more sense to just put up what you have explicitly noted as drafts etc, and count the 'votes' that way.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#57

Post by rightbyte »

joenot443 wrote: post #47

This is a really good article. There's a quality in strong developers which is difficult to select for in an interview but wildly valuable once they're up and running; maybe the best word is "scrappiness". When I interview juniors or interns, one of the questions I like to ask is something like this- "You've got two computer, one Linux one Windows. There's 50gb of files on the Windows machine which need to be moved t…

You'd probably need to put the HD in the other machine.

What is the "scrappy" way to do it?

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#58

Post by joenot443 »

qiine wrote: post #54
joenot443 wrote: post #47

This is a really good article. There's a quality in strong developers which is difficult to select for in an interview but wildly valuable once they're up and running; maybe the best word is "scrappiness". When I interview juniors or interns, one of the questions I like to ask is something like this- "You've got two computer, one Linux one Windows. There's 50gb of files on the Windows machine which need to be moved t…

soOo how do you do it ? ;p

Well, the answer I love them to start with is asking if they're single-bay computers and if not, why they can't just turn off both machines and stick the HDDs in the same box :) It's also a great signal if they can follow this up by noting that the Windows drive is probably formatted in NTFS so the Linux instance will need drivers to support it.

Otherwise, a wired network + SMB/Samba is a fine solution too, though much slower.

Even if they just suggest using an external SSD I'd be relatively happy. More than anything, this kind of question is to see what happens when a junior's asked to do something they haven't done before. Any answer but "I don't know" is a good start.

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#59

Post by joenot443 »

rightbyte wrote: post #57
joenot443 wrote: post #47

This is a really good article. There's a quality in strong developers which is difficult to select for in an interview but wildly valuable once they're up and running; maybe the best word is "scrappiness". When I interview juniors or interns, one of the questions I like to ask is something like this- "You've got two computer, one Linux one Windows. There's 50gb of files on the Windows machine which need to be moved t…

You'd probably need to put the HD in the other machine. What is the "scrappy" way to do it?

That is the scrappy way :)

I think sometimes we forget there are plenty of engineers out there whose experience interfacing with a computer begins and ends at the KBM. "Put the HD in the other machine" isn't super obvious to every junior, though I wish it was!

Re: Experts have it easy (2024)

#60

Post by jeffrallen »

nottorp wrote: post #19
edelbitter wrote: post #5

> unguided “water-cooler” interaction This meme needs to stop. Knowledge transfer from experts to novices is way too important to be left to chance. And thanks to pre-pivot StackOverflow we even have considerable data on how much better it can be done, at least for white collar industries. Reducing the effort of experts to give advice, and enlarging the audience benefiting from a singular effort to write it down is o…

If you only do structured knowledge transfer you get to transfer whatever the expert thinks they should pass on and at best also what the novice thinks they should learn. Which may or may not be the full expertise.

Also, a novice is more ready to learn a lesson on the way back from a dead end than while barreling down towards it.
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