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Deliberate practice in a nutshell - pick something that has a measurable outcome, have a target that is just slightly harder than is possible for you at the mom

Deliberate practice in a nutshell - pick something that has a measurable outcome, have a target that is just slightly harder than is possible for you at the moment ("outside your comfort zone"), do it, then compare your measured results against your target, and then iterate. I am not entirely sure deliberate practice works for programming. I've been following Anders Eriksson's work for 10+ years, and it seems most applicable when applied to domains that have a history of training. Want to learn how to sing really well? You can probably do it. Want to be the best basketball free-thrower in the world? Probably. It's the lack of a body of trainers and training that hurt, because deliberate practice talks about having quantifiable goals and the ability to compare how you did it versus how it's supposed to be done. E.g. have a trainer in golf means the trainer can critique your strike. If I ever figure out deliberate practice for programming, you can bet for damn sure I'll write a book.

agbell 9y ago
I think this is strictly true. Eriksson says specifically that deliberate practice is only possible when there is a body of training knowledge and trainers. However, also, he talks about how to approximate this in other fields. He suggests the "Benjamin Franklin Method"[1] as one idea and I think it could be used with small open source projects. Also, projects like exercism.io use other learners as the trainers. I think Eriksson calls this the "top gun" method, based on the flight school and movie. [1] https://excellence-in-literature.com/copywork-how-benjamin-franklin-taught-himself-to-write-well/ https://excellence-in-literature.com/copywork-how-benjamin-f...
segmondy 9y ago
Deliberate practice works for programming.
- astoellis 9y ago
  EDIT: Just saw your other post, thanks for the clarifications! Could you please provide some elaboration on your comment? As it stands, it doesn't explain how that works or why you believe that, and I think others would find that valuable.
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
One can do deliberate practice for writing prose (or poetry). The difference between a golf swing and a chunk of code is that, as you pointed out, there is a history of pedagogy such that many agree upon what makes a swing "good". But then many disagree on what makes it great. Or rather, depending on the coach, they emphasize different aspects to be tweaked and amplified. Could we not do that with code? I think fluency for basics could be emphasized at first, so the thinking could be put elsewhere sooner. This could change how students are taught at bootcamps, for example. The current bootcamp model is virtually devoid of any strategy with respect to pedagogy. They like to reference "the firehose" method, borrowing from MIT and Stanford. But they are teaching basics. Basics are deliberate practice developed skill sets. Firehose is just another way to say "we don't yet know how to teach basics but we like to overwhelm students and pretend it is some kind of teaching philosophy" . Granted, someone needs to address the issues you raise, but when they do, pedagogy might emerge. funny to contemplate how behind chess pedagogy code pedagogy is though.

agbell 9y ago

I think this is strictly true. Eriksson says specifically that deliberate practice is only possible when there is a body of training knowledge and trainers. However, also, he talks about how to approximate this in other fields. He suggests the "Benjamin Franklin Method"[1] as one idea and I think it could be used with small open source projects. Also, projects like exercism.io use other learners as the trainers. I think Eriksson calls this the "top gun" method, based on the flight school and movie. [1] https://excellence-in-literature.com/copywork-how-benjamin-franklin-taught-himself-to-write-well/ https://excellence-in-literature.com/copywork-how-benjamin-f...

segmondy 9y ago

Deliberate practice works for programming.

astoellis 9y ago
EDIT: Just saw your other post, thanks for the clarifications! Could you please provide some elaboration on your comment? As it stands, it doesn't explain how that works or why you believe that, and I think others would find that valuable.

brooklyn_ashey 9y ago

One can do deliberate practice for writing prose (or poetry). The difference between a golf swing and a chunk of code is that, as you pointed out, there is a history of pedagogy such that many agree upon what makes a swing "good". But then many disagree on what makes it great. Or rather, depending on the coach, they emphasize different aspects to be tweaked and amplified. Could we not do that with code? I think fluency for basics could be emphasized at first, so the thinking could be put elsewhere sooner. This could change how students are taught at bootcamps, for example. The current bootcamp model is virtually devoid of any strategy with respect to pedagogy. They like to reference "the firehose" method, borrowing from MIT and Stanford. But they are teaching basics. Basics are deliberate practice developed skill sets. Firehose is just another way to say "we don't yet know how to teach basics but we like to overwhelm students and pretend it is some kind of teaching philosophy" . Granted, someone needs to address the issues you raise, but when they do, pedagogy might emerge. funny to contemplate how behind chess pedagogy code pedagogy is though.