5 ms·

I think I fall into the "don't get it" category. Could you explain what I should be taking away from this? I understand that being at the leading edge has bene

I think I fall into the "don't get it" category. Could you explain what I should be taking away from this? I understand that being at the leading edge has benefits, but it's not feasible to understand the state-of-the-art across an entire CS curriculum.

graycat 7y ago
It appears that there is a sense in which he is correct: E.g., early in my career I stumbled onto some of what he is saying but then didn't appreciate the situation. Basically, just stay with what is hot. Get into a hot job, learn what is hot, jump to another job that wants the hot stuff, keep going for the hot stuff. This way get to focus: (1) Actually can get okay with the point of the focus at the hot stuff because that point is not very large or hard if only because what is "hot" is from a public that doesn't know very much and (2) do not have to learn computer science broadly. If take the money from learning the hot stuff, get a good Ph.D. in what is arguably the better stuff, go back to the job market, and no longer be with the then current hot stuff, then can find that your career is in trouble. Then using your actual competence in some actually important stuff, do a startup where need to please the users but not some naive public fooled by mostly simplistic hot stuff.
cjp 7y ago
Of course, no one can understand everything, but he said, "pick a subject". Just one, not everything. I'm reminded of this description of a PhD: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
- neltnerb 7y ago
  I disagree with this cartoon in that getting to the edge is not easier by focusing on only one thing. Not knowing other things is just as likely to hold you back from some insight as not knowing your specialty well enough. It's so common that people unaware of progress in other fields spin their wheels solving problems with known solutions that I think the circle should have been more of a confounded sphere where knowing a bit of EE and ChemE makes your work on BioEng 10x closer to the edge. Knowing more than one field reinforces the strength of your innovation. Simple example, how much easier is it to make progress in applied physics if you know enough EE and machining to design and build the best test apparatus in the world? Pick a focus and whenever you get to the point that you're a strong expert (or whatever level you feel is useful) and can do the job you want to do you should reach a bit and pick up something you're curious about to add more diversity to your skillset. Being a generalist isn't bad, I basically have a PhD in being a generalist and tons of people want to work with me because someone who only understands optics will be lost when they need to use a photodiode and a lock in amplifier or someone who wants to test magnetic properties will be lost when they don't know how to actually construct a custom magnet. Among many obvious examples. Unless you're at a place so big that you can just glide on assuming other people will fill in the gaps in your knowledge, you need both general and specific skills. A PhD doesn't have to mean you are only capable of one thing unless you let it, even if that was the common meaning 20 years ago. There just aren't the jobs in academia to support that kind of singular focus anyway. We're going to live long enough that it's a terrible career decision to pigeon hole yourself so badly 50 years before you're even theoretically going to retire. Especially with online classes it's only going to get more common for people to have multiple significant skills and major changes in their field over the course of their career. Required even. Very few people are going to go for 50 years with a single technical expertise, certainly jobs for such experts are far harder to find than jobs for people who can do a few things at a more modest level of expertise. I know a ton about materials science and physics, have genetically engineered viruses, have built chemical reactors, have designed catalysts, have done machine learning, have designed lots and lots of electronics, have programmed as required (not my favorite kind of work, but I've done 8051 assembly up to ARM firmware, Matlab, Scheme, Python, and shudder LabView), am more than half decent at machining, teach karate, perform music, and make art... trying to be the best at just one thing to the exclusion of all else is unnecessary and limiting both professionally and personally. I was terrible at all of these things when I started. The article echoes my philosophy as well -- you have to learn to learn because you want to and not because you want a grade. I got a C- in differential equations. Two years later in stat mech I was the only one of my friends who recognized LaGrangian multipliers being used (by name even) because when I took the course my goal was to learn differential equations regardless of what grade I got, so I didn't forget it all the second the final was done. If you are the kind of person who just won't do homework unless it's graded, you should work on that because it will hold you back and you're training yourself to rapidly forget information that isn't required to pass a test. Don't be afraid to try new things that interest you. Be okay with skilled people saying you're bad at something you did your best at, grow a thicker skin since those people are the ones likely to be able to give you advice to become good at it. Professors want you to come to office hours, especially if you're struggling. You have to be okay with getting that C-, who cares what grade they assign you as long as ten years later you still remember convolutions or whatever. Be solid at a bunch of stuff rather than extremely good at, I don't know, something super specific like the spin states in cobalt platinum alloys or matlab modeling of alloy surface energy same as you shouldn't refuse to learn anything but Python if you want to still be a developer in 2069.
indymike 7y ago
It may not be feasible for the entire curriculum, but it may be feasible for a student to roll their own curriculum that is.
msla 7y ago
It's feasible to know the shape of the current field, so you know where to drill deeper for more information if you want it. For example, you have a file in one format and you want it in another one... if that doesn't make the word 'compiler' or at least 'parser' pop up, you need some more education. You probably don't know everything about compilers, but you can search for information about compilers and find out enough to get by. The thing to avoid is becoming a person of one book, or a person of one tool, where you know one thing and only one thing, and you experience deep anxiety when you're out of your (one, singular) comfort zone. Being an expert in everything is impossible, but being an expert in one thing with no knowledge of anything else is definitely something to avoid.

graycat 7y ago

It appears that there is a sense in which he is correct: E.g., early in my career I stumbled onto some of what he is saying but then didn't appreciate the situation. Basically, just stay with what is hot. Get into a hot job, learn what is hot, jump to another job that wants the hot stuff, keep going for the hot stuff. This way get to focus: (1) Actually can get okay with the point of the focus at the hot stuff because that point is not very large or hard if only because what is "hot" is from a public that doesn't know very much and (2) do not have to learn computer science broadly. If take the money from learning the hot stuff, get a good Ph.D. in what is arguably the better stuff, go back to the job market, and no longer be with the then current hot stuff, then can find that your career is in trouble. Then using your actual competence in some actually important stuff, do a startup where need to please the users but not some naive public fooled by mostly simplistic hot stuff.

cjp 7y ago

Of course, no one can understand everything, but he said, "pick a subject". Just one, not everything. I'm reminded of this description of a PhD: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/

neltnerb 7y ago
I disagree with this cartoon in that getting to the edge is not easier by focusing on only one thing. Not knowing other things is just as likely to hold you back from some insight as not knowing your specialty well enough. It's so common that people unaware of progress in other fields spin their wheels solving problems with known solutions that I think the circle should have been more of a confounded sphere where knowing a bit of EE and ChemE makes your work on BioEng 10x closer to the edge. Knowing more than one field reinforces the strength of your innovation. Simple example, how much easier is it to make progress in applied physics if you know enough EE and machining to design and build the best test apparatus in the world? Pick a focus and whenever you get to the point that you're a strong expert (or whatever level you feel is useful) and can do the job you want to do you should reach a bit and pick up something you're curious about to add more diversity to your skillset. Being a generalist isn't bad, I basically have a PhD in being a generalist and tons of people want to work with me because someone who only understands optics will be lost when they need to use a photodiode and a lock in amplifier or someone who wants to test magnetic properties will be lost when they don't know how to actually construct a custom magnet. Among many obvious examples. Unless you're at a place so big that you can just glide on assuming other people will fill in the gaps in your knowledge, you need both general and specific skills. A PhD doesn't have to mean you are only capable of one thing unless you let it, even if that was the common meaning 20 years ago. There just aren't the jobs in academia to support that kind of singular focus anyway. We're going to live long enough that it's a terrible career decision to pigeon hole yourself so badly 50 years before you're even theoretically going to retire. Especially with online classes it's only going to get more common for people to have multiple significant skills and major changes in their field over the course of their career. Required even. Very few people are going to go for 50 years with a single technical expertise, certainly jobs for such experts are far harder to find than jobs for people who can do a few things at a more modest level of expertise. I know a ton about materials science and physics, have genetically engineered viruses, have built chemical reactors, have designed catalysts, have done machine learning, have designed lots and lots of electronics, have programmed as required (not my favorite kind of work, but I've done 8051 assembly up to ARM firmware, Matlab, Scheme, Python, and shudder LabView), am more than half decent at machining, teach karate, perform music, and make art... trying to be the best at just one thing to the exclusion of all else is unnecessary and limiting both professionally and personally. I was terrible at all of these things when I started. The article echoes my philosophy as well -- you have to learn to learn because you want to and not because you want a grade. I got a C- in differential equations. Two years later in stat mech I was the only one of my friends who recognized LaGrangian multipliers being used (by name even) because when I took the course my goal was to learn differential equations regardless of what grade I got, so I didn't forget it all the second the final was done. If you are the kind of person who just won't do homework unless it's graded, you should work on that because it will hold you back and you're training yourself to rapidly forget information that isn't required to pass a test. Don't be afraid to try new things that interest you. Be okay with skilled people saying you're bad at something you did your best at, grow a thicker skin since those people are the ones likely to be able to give you advice to become good at it. Professors want you to come to office hours, especially if you're struggling. You have to be okay with getting that C-, who cares what grade they assign you as long as ten years later you still remember convolutions or whatever. Be solid at a bunch of stuff rather than extremely good at, I don't know, something super specific like the spin states in cobalt platinum alloys or matlab modeling of alloy surface energy same as you shouldn't refuse to learn anything but Python if you want to still be a developer in 2069.

indymike 7y ago

It may not be feasible for the entire curriculum, but it may be feasible for a student to roll their own curriculum that is.

msla 7y ago

It's feasible to know the shape of the current field, so you know where to drill deeper for more information if you want it. For example, you have a file in one format and you want it in another one... if that doesn't make the word 'compiler' or at least 'parser' pop up, you need some more education. You probably don't know everything about compilers, but you can search for information about compilers and find out enough to get by. The thing to avoid is becoming a person of one book, or a person of one tool, where you know one thing and only one thing, and you experience deep anxiety when you're out of your (one, singular) comfort zone. Being an expert in everything is impossible, but being an expert in one thing with no knowledge of anything else is definitely something to avoid.