6 ms·

Don't spend too much time trying to decipher people who claim to be "levels ahead of you." If they actually understood the topic, they could easily explain it

Don't spend too much time trying to decipher people who claim to be "levels ahead of you." If they actually understood the topic, they could easily explain it in a way that a novice can understand.

cobbzilla 7y ago
Knowing and teaching are very different things. Did you never have a professor who was a brilliant researcher/scientist but a horrible instructor?
- mjlangiii 7y ago
  +1, and anecdotally I've seen most good developers are bad teachers and that I have always gotten much more from my peers just one or two levels ahead of me (regardless of my peer's ability to teach).
lazyasciiart 7y ago
That assumes that they are trying to explain something to you, but sometimes you are trying to sit in on a meetup aimed at people with more knowledge than yourself, or just following along a discussion between other people.
leetcrew 7y ago
some things are irreducibly complex. if I ask a theoretical physicist about their work, they may not be able to explain anything meaningful about it to me.
jschwartzi 7y ago
Some of the things that I know about would take months or years to explain to a novice in such a way that they would understand what I was talking about. Not by way of metaphor or by analogy, but to truly see things the way I'm seeing them when I give an explanation. We can try to meet halfway but the requisite knowledge may be lacking. In effect this is what I'm doing when I coach interns and juniors -- giving them the requisite knowledge so that they can see things the way I'm trying to explain them.
- onei 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, what sort of topics require months of years of explanation? I find that most complex topics can be broken down to a point where an average adult could digest them if they're interested enough in learning them. I wouldn't necessarily say that a 5-10 min explanation means that they could apply it in the field, but enough to understand a specific scenario.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    A question from a five-years-old: why is sky blue? A correct answer: you need to learn how to read, then some mathematics, then quantum physics, then you can calculate how sunlight scatters on molecules of air. Understanding the physiology of color vision won't hurt, too. This is not very useful. But at least you see some topics to learn more about, and a simplified picture may be built: sunlight contains some blue light, and it gets stuck in the air, while reds and greens pass in more easily. Hey, you just understood why sunsets are orange and red! Go on.
    - artsrc 7y ago
      White Light is actually a mix of colours, the rainbow. You can split it into parts with a glass prism, or in good weather a sprinkler? Light is a bit like a wave through the air and in the blue light the waves are closer together. The sky aboves us has a small amount of dust. Because the blue light waves are closer together they hit more dust. This means they are more likely to bounce towards us, so we see blue when we look up at the sky. At sunset the blue waves are more still more likely to hit dust, and so be blocked, so we see red. Not simple enough, but I gave it a go.
    - pfooti 7y ago
      Because that's the color of air.
    - bitwize 7y ago
      "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" "Let's start with you reading (and demonstrating to me a core competence of) the basic texts of physics leading up to Rayleigh scattering--in this case, that would be Newton, Liebniz, Maxwell, Einstein, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger. When you have those six down, I'd be happy to explain to you why the sky is blue." Inspired by: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492061
Doubl 7y ago
You make a good point, then again many people though they understand something cannot communicate it to noobs on account of curse of knowledge issues. Afaik, Fenyman regularly refreshed himself on the basics, he felt it helped his own understanding I think, but that probably had a lot to do with what made him a great teacher as well.
dromen 7y ago
That tactic makes sense when you want to communicate to people on a much lower level than you are at, and you want them to get the surface level rapidly. If this were to be levied at me accusingly I'd throw a programming Bible at them, get thee hence and study.
tyleo 7y ago
I agree. The best engineers I have worked with have been able to justify decisions to a whole team. They were able to educate those who weren’t up to speed elevating the group. The worst engineers dismissed others out of hand, saying they lacked the requisite knowledge for a discussion.
tomnipotent 7y ago
> If they actually understood the topic, they could easily explain it in a way that a novice can understand This is so patently untrue. Folks like Feynman are the exception, not the rule.

Don't spend too much time trying to decipher people who claim to be "levels ahead of you." If they actually understood the topic, they could easily explain it in a way that a novice can understand.

cobbzilla 7y ago

Knowing and teaching are very different things. Did you never have a professor who was a brilliant researcher/scientist but a horrible instructor?

mjlangiii 7y ago
+1, and anecdotally I've seen most good developers are bad teachers and that I have always gotten much more from my peers just one or two levels ahead of me (regardless of my peer's ability to teach).

lazyasciiart 7y ago

That assumes that they are trying to explain something to you, but sometimes you are trying to sit in on a meetup aimed at people with more knowledge than yourself, or just following along a discussion between other people.

leetcrew 7y ago

some things are irreducibly complex. if I ask a theoretical physicist about their work, they may not be able to explain anything meaningful about it to me.

jschwartzi 7y ago

Some of the things that I know about would take months or years to explain to a novice in such a way that they would understand what I was talking about. Not by way of metaphor or by analogy, but to truly see things the way I'm seeing them when I give an explanation. We can try to meet halfway but the requisite knowledge may be lacking. In effect this is what I'm doing when I coach interns and juniors -- giving them the requisite knowledge so that they can see things the way I'm trying to explain them.

onei 7y ago
Out of curiosity, what sort of topics require months of years of explanation? I find that most complex topics can be broken down to a point where an average adult could digest them if they're interested enough in learning them. I wouldn't necessarily say that a 5-10 min explanation means that they could apply it in the field, but enough to understand a specific scenario.
- nine_k 7y ago
  A question from a five-years-old: why is sky blue? A correct answer: you need to learn how to read, then some mathematics, then quantum physics, then you can calculate how sunlight scatters on molecules of air. Understanding the physiology of color vision won't hurt, too. This is not very useful. But at least you see some topics to learn more about, and a simplified picture may be built: sunlight contains some blue light, and it gets stuck in the air, while reds and greens pass in more easily. Hey, you just understood why sunsets are orange and red! Go on.
  - artsrc 7y ago
    White Light is actually a mix of colours, the rainbow. You can split it into parts with a glass prism, or in good weather a sprinkler? Light is a bit like a wave through the air and in the blue light the waves are closer together. The sky aboves us has a small amount of dust. Because the blue light waves are closer together they hit more dust. This means they are more likely to bounce towards us, so we see blue when we look up at the sky. At sunset the blue waves are more still more likely to hit dust, and so be blocked, so we see red. Not simple enough, but I gave it a go.
  - pfooti 7y ago
    Because that's the color of air.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" "Let's start with you reading (and demonstrating to me a core competence of) the basic texts of physics leading up to Rayleigh scattering--in this case, that would be Newton, Liebniz, Maxwell, Einstein, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger. When you have those six down, I'd be happy to explain to you why the sky is blue." Inspired by: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492061

Doubl 7y ago

You make a good point, then again many people though they understand something cannot communicate it to noobs on account of curse of knowledge issues. Afaik, Fenyman regularly refreshed himself on the basics, he felt it helped his own understanding I think, but that probably had a lot to do with what made him a great teacher as well.

dromen 7y ago

That tactic makes sense when you want to communicate to people on a much lower level than you are at, and you want them to get the surface level rapidly. If this were to be levied at me accusingly I'd throw a programming Bible at them, get thee hence and study.

tyleo 7y ago

I agree. The best engineers I have worked with have been able to justify decisions to a whole team. They were able to educate those who weren’t up to speed elevating the group. The worst engineers dismissed others out of hand, saying they lacked the requisite knowledge for a discussion.

tomnipotent 7y ago

> If they actually understood the topic, they could easily explain it in a way that a novice can understand This is so patently untrue. Folks like Feynman are the exception, not the rule.