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Sorry! It's possible that I missed some context, yes. I kind of skimmed this thread and fixated on your post because it seemed like it was making a rather extre

by saulrh 11y ago

Sorry! It's possible that I missed some context, yes. I kind of skimmed this thread and fixated on your post because it seemed like it was making a rather extreme claim. If you're already a good engineer, then it's much more likely that you can become a great engineer. I'm still not convinced that every good engineer can become a great engineer. Maybe most? I know that I have a memory-related lack of attention to detail that I've never been able to get rid of entirely, regardless of adherence to lists and standards and specs and so on. I basically can't maintain an event-driven workflow and it causes problems. I've gotten around it by going into mathematics and programming, which are relatively stateless, but I can easily see myself reaching "good" engineer status but not "great" engineer status.

andy_ppp 11y ago
What are the areas you need to focus on to be good? Mine are definitely tests, specifically mocking actual write events happening (or rather stopping them from happening) in an API I have built. It'd be boring if I wasn't learning new things though right?
- saulrh 11y ago
  Testing is an issue, yes. Making sure my tests are comprehensive, making sure my environment is set up in a way that makes the tests valid (that is, that I'm going through the right code paths) and verifying such, remembering where all the appropriate checklists are ("oh, right, that was testing a Y, I need to do checklist t_Y"). I occasionally have to make an extra commit because I forgot to stage a line or a comment. Stuff like that. I've largely dealt with it by moving into CS theory and AI (which have less of that) and by using Google's reminders system (inbox, now, keep) to deal with the remainder. Just, whenever I have to do engineering, it's always going to be more difficult for me, and since I'm damn good at math there's no real reason for me to focus on engineering beyond the level where the other things I'm doing don't take hits from it. And unless I manage some kind of transformative pivot or redefinition, it'd be pretty stupid for me to focus on being a great engineer, and I'm not sure I'd be able to. I certainly am never going to be as good an engineer as I could be a computer scientist.

by saulrh 11y ago

andy_ppp 11y ago

What are the areas you need to focus on to be good? Mine are definitely tests, specifically mocking actual write events happening (or rather stopping them from happening) in an API I have built. It'd be boring if I wasn't learning new things though right?

saulrh 11y ago
Testing is an issue, yes. Making sure my tests are comprehensive, making sure my environment is set up in a way that makes the tests valid (that is, that I'm going through the right code paths) and verifying such, remembering where all the appropriate checklists are ("oh, right, that was testing a Y, I need to do checklist t_Y"). I occasionally have to make an extra commit because I forgot to stage a line or a comment. Stuff like that. I've largely dealt with it by moving into CS theory and AI (which have less of that) and by using Google's reminders system (inbox, now, keep) to deal with the remainder. Just, whenever I have to do engineering, it's always going to be more difficult for me, and since I'm damn good at math there's no real reason for me to focus on engineering beyond the level where the other things I'm doing don't take hits from it. And unless I manage some kind of transformative pivot or redefinition, it'd be pretty stupid for me to focus on being a great engineer, and I'm not sure I'd be able to. I certainly am never going to be as good an engineer as I could be a computer scientist.