I really liked this post and completely agree with the message. We tend to equate each year of experience with "getting better". That's just not always the case. It has to be deliberate. You have to be curious!
You aren't getting any better
51–60 of 94 posts
Re: You aren't getting any better
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest problem is selling stocks to suckers hasn't changed much in a century or so. Fred Schwed's hilarious classic shows absolutely nothing has changed in that business in 90 years other than minor terminology. On the other hand, other than general job title and being in front of a keyboard and looking at a screen, almost nothing I did in 1981 is even remotely similar to what I do in 2013. I started out with ba…
How does Algorithmic trading fit into this model?
Your average 40 year career stockbroker knows there's some young nerds from the physics, math, and CS departments who were hired into the mostly B-school grad company, but he doesn't work with them or hang out with them or have anything to do with them other than maybe 3 or 4 levels up the org chart they share a boss. So for an upper level manager HFT is a "new thing" in the biz but not so much a broker. And from an upper level manager perspective they're not totally new so much as basically expensive automated hyperactive daytraders.
Yes I'm sure there exist rare individual exceptions but very few experienced brokers pivoted out of sales and human trading/consulting into algorithm design.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#53"Many studies, collected most notably in Geoff Colvin's "Talent is Overrated", find that in a wide range of disciplines experience has absolutely no correlation with efficacy [1]." You seem to think you're presenting a surprising fact here, but you already explained this in your very first sentence: "hackers have a much greater intrinsic desire to improve their skills than those in other professions."
The first sentence seems to be an anecdote based on a specific set of people whereas the mention of Colvin's Talent is Overrated is a presentation of evidence and also a more general pattern. Why do you find the two sentences redundant?
Oh sorry, I didn't mean I find them redundant per say - I think they show a flaw in the main point. The main point seems to be that all the work many developers do to get better isn't working. But this statement was based on a study that encompasses many fields, while it already stated that people in most other professions don't work so hard to get better as developers do. So it makes sense that overall, people don't get better. That doesn't mean developers don't either.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#54Not a fan of this post. Link bait title followed by almost zero substance. Stockbroker performance would be an ok point of comparison for another non-deterministic profession, like an athlete. But programming is deterministic. Your code either performs the desired function in the desired way or it does not. Additionally, there are clear skills you can pick up. You either know these things or you don't. You really can…
I think you're making a dangerous correlation between the determinism of software and the supposed determinism of skill at software development. Yes, one of the most important aspects of software development is making code that runs correctly, but that is not the only aspect. Even if we focus on that alone, we run into many issues: - How do we determine whether anything but the most trivial program is correct? - Are…
You missed my point. Of course there are subjective qualities to code. That's irrelevant to my point.
Which was that a stockbroker is a bad analogy because he can be 10x better than he was in his 20's and bad luck can negate all his skill and effort.
That doesn't happen with programming. There's not that luck factor. Even to the subjective aspects.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#55Not a fan of this post. Link bait title followed by almost zero substance. Stockbroker performance would be an ok point of comparison for another non-deterministic profession, like an athlete. But programming is deterministic. Your code either performs the desired function in the desired way or it does not. Additionally, there are clear skills you can pick up. You either know these things or you don't. You really can…
Important parts of programming are subjective, such as usability, code readability, maintainability, requirements elicitation.
Yes but totally irrelevant to my point.
Re: You aren't getting any better
#56Stock brokers are a bad example, because that is essentially gambling. Also playing around with some API will make me better in using that API. What are some meaningful metrics for becoming a better developer? Personally, I'd like to launch more.
I don't think it's as bad as you think.
While there is luck involved with the stock market, those trading in it are not machines trading randomly (which would make it truly gambling) - they are thinking humans trying to make the best decisions they can. It's very easy to spent years playing in the market - but not focusing on improving yourself as a player. The same is true for poker (which is my background).
I'm pretty new to code, but I would think that it's possible to reach that level after a few years. Building things that are easy for you and not pushing to deepen your knowledge.
You get me bro?
Re: You aren't getting any better
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can do all that, you shouldn't be working on simple CRUD applications.
The tool is not the goal.
If you were one of a few surgeons capable of performing highly specialised surgery, wouldn't you leave cuts and bruises for the interns and the nurses?
Re: You aren't getting any better
#58So what's the advice here, try harder at getting better?
Re: You aren't getting any better
#59>Many studies, collected most notably in Geoff Colvin's "Talent is Overrated", find that in a wide range of disciplines experience has absolutely no correlation with efficacy [1]. Lifelong stockbrokers perform at exactly the same level as those in their 20s; or, rephrasing this slightly, lifelong stockbrokers perform at exactly the same level as when THEY were in their 20s. Despite having overseen numerous trades, been to countless conferences and devoted thousands upon thousands of hours to the craft of stockbroking, they are not even slightly more skilled that they were 40 years before.
Yes, but why draw the bizzaro conclusion that experience is overrated in other trades too?
This is due to the fact that the stock market is an unpredictable, multi-variable system based on belief and millions of volatile individual perceptions, and the "experts" are more or less "farting around in the dark". But we already knew that about the stock market.
Not to mention that the above "example", also clashes with his advice later on:
>If [getting better] is what you want, you have to make a conscious effort and chart a deliberate course.
If his own "example" about the traders was universally applicable, then that wouldn't be possible at all. Or does he think that the traders just didn't spent "conscious effort"?
Re: You aren't getting any better
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious, would you elaborate on your reasons to avoid "to be" verbs?
Maybe its an avoidance of identity with these things? Typically people regard things that they claim are part of their identity as more fixed than other things. Alternatively, he could be following the advice of Korzybski, in Science and Sanity en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski
It's the first and part of the second. I've never heard of Korzybski but I arrived at a similar idea that makes physics easier to grasp. I prefer to say gravity is well modeled as curvature of a manifold instead of saying gravity is a bending of spacetime. I also prefer to say someone is acting foolish than to say they are foolish. Never realized they could be connected as part of the same general philosophy. Thanks.
It's very easy to slip but I've gotten better in time.