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I wonder if there is any data on the efficacy of these techniques. Deliberate practice makes sense to me, but I really wonder if the others require purposeful

I wonder if there is any data on the efficacy of these techniques. Deliberate practice makes sense to me, but I really wonder if the others require purposeful study or if you just pick up metaskills if you hack away at your project. Heck, in 5 years I might be reading an HN article: "Deliberate practice isn't all its supposed to be." And an article about how the original deliberate practice study was flawed because it just forced people into hours of extra practice or something.

mseebach 8y ago
It's a question of keeping track of which is the map and which is the territory. The point, I believe, is to be continually and relentlessly introspective, asking yourself how you can do better today than yesterday (and having a realistic view of what 'better' is). Deliberate practice can be helpful in forcing such introspection, if you let it. If you just go through the motions, it won't help much, certainly not sustained. You end up with cargo-culting. The classic example is the GoF Design Patterns book - it was a very good book, at least at it's time, you could expand your horizons a lot by reading it, and get a lot of tricks up your sleeve to deal with certain tricky, but relatively common, situations. But if you start actively to impose design patterns on code that doesn't need it so you can tell yourself (or your peers or whoever might listen) that you're a design patterns kind of guy, you end up with overly complex and hard to read (ie: bad) code.
ztjio 8y ago
I think the mistake here is that you think “purposeful study” and “pick up metaskills as you hack away at your project” are not both examples of (potential) deliberate practice. What makes either one deliberate or not is whether you make a point to focus on how well it was done, how it achieved goals (or not) and how to improve. That’s the deliberate part and that’s the part that makes the difference and is missing by default. As long as you’re constantly evaluating and making attempts to improve, it doesn’t matter so much in what context you’re doing the thing, whether it be for fun, for learning, for work, or whatever. “Practice” simply means you’re actually doing a thing as opposed to studying it theoretically. Though I think many people have a habit of reading into that word the notion that what you are doing is a throwaway or has very low expectations of success or importance. But keep in mind that what a doctor does every day is called “practice.”
FooHentai 8y ago
Difficult to control for variables if you were going to try and conduct a proper scientific study. The main proof we have is the results of people that have implemented the techniques described. But there are also other places where it's possible to take a closer look with a fairly large number of samples. Competitive multiplayer gaming is a good example, there are certainly competitors in that field who practice on a 'raw hours' basis and those that focus on individual skills in an ordered fashion. All that's needed is to go out and match that against their respective results.

mseebach 8y ago

It's a question of keeping track of which is the map and which is the territory. The point, I believe, is to be continually and relentlessly introspective, asking yourself how you can do better today than yesterday (and having a realistic view of what 'better' is). Deliberate practice can be helpful in forcing such introspection, if you let it. If you just go through the motions, it won't help much, certainly not sustained. You end up with cargo-culting. The classic example is the GoF Design Patterns book - it was a very good book, at least at it's time, you could expand your horizons a lot by reading it, and get a lot of tricks up your sleeve to deal with certain tricky, but relatively common, situations. But if you start actively to impose design patterns on code that doesn't need it so you can tell yourself (or your peers or whoever might listen) that you're a design patterns kind of guy, you end up with overly complex and hard to read (ie: bad) code.

ztjio 8y ago

I think the mistake here is that you think “purposeful study” and “pick up metaskills as you hack away at your project” are not both examples of (potential) deliberate practice. What makes either one deliberate or not is whether you make a point to focus on how well it was done, how it achieved goals (or not) and how to improve. That’s the deliberate part and that’s the part that makes the difference and is missing by default. As long as you’re constantly evaluating and making attempts to improve, it doesn’t matter so much in what context you’re doing the thing, whether it be for fun, for learning, for work, or whatever. “Practice” simply means you’re actually doing a thing as opposed to studying it theoretically. Though I think many people have a habit of reading into that word the notion that what you are doing is a throwaway or has very low expectations of success or importance. But keep in mind that what a doctor does every day is called “practice.”

FooHentai 8y ago

Difficult to control for variables if you were going to try and conduct a proper scientific study. The main proof we have is the results of people that have implemented the techniques described. But there are also other places where it's possible to take a closer look with a fairly large number of samples. Competitive multiplayer gaming is a good example, there are certainly competitors in that field who practice on a 'raw hours' basis and those that focus on individual skills in an ordered fashion. All that's needed is to go out and match that against their respective results.