10 ms·

This is why I think people should still learn their job through hands-on apprenticeship, as opposed to a lot of book-learning in the classroom. In fact I think

This is why I think people should still learn their job through hands-on apprenticeship, as opposed to a lot of book-learning in the classroom. In fact I think people do still learn their jobs that way. It's just delayed by several years of book-learning that has little return on investment. When you finally land your job, your first few months are when you really start learning enough to become useful. Disclaimer: I am biased. I am biased toward book learning! In school I made A's and loved book learning. Clarification: I think book learning is useful. It's just that the order is wrong. Nothing I read in a book sticks until I have tried my hand at it for a few weeks. But an experienced programmer (or plumber for that matter) would probably get even better after reading a few good books.

feanaro 7y ago
> Nothing I read in a book sticks until I have tried my hand at it for a few weeks. I don't think this is universal, though. Book reading is very natural for me and sticks immediately. In fact, I often find that things I've read today and not understood become magically clear a few days later.
- zionic 7y ago
  I'm the complete opposite. I'm convinced my brain has some kind of overly aggressive internal garbage collection. Knowledge/tools that I haven't derived utility/benefit from get purged. I will say that something I've book-learned in the past can be re-learned more rapidly if I run into that problem in the future, but it's grossly inefficient and of little benefit.
  - ErikAugust 7y ago
    I have found this to be true, but I think the key to absorbing things is to figure out how to associate it with benefit/utility.
- combatentropy 7y ago
  I can see it going both ways, depending on how narrowly you define "new thing." I have never written a program in Go but could probably pick it up through reading, because I have years of experience with other languages. But I pity the poor programmer trying to set up everything for the first time, alone. Or my first try at home repair was daunting. But now that I have fixed a few simple things I have a better feel for it and might be okay learning the next thing with a book. I think this is partly why some people like watching Youtube videos and others just want an article.
- grawprog 7y ago
  I've found I need both myself. I learn best when I read something and then shortly after get practical practice using what I just read. I find i'll forget little details of what I read if I don't use it right away, but they'll stick if I do something with it right away.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    I agree, I've come to appreciate the practical aspects too and feel like I'm now using them synergistically. I'd still say theoretical reading is my primary learning mode.
- edflsafoiewq 7y ago
  Doesn't that mean it doesn't stick immediately? I've always assumed that's because you're sort of mulling it over in the back of your head.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    If I understood it the first time, it usually sticks very well. I'm refraining from saying completely and always because it's obviously not an absolute. What I meant with that last sentence was that even for material I did not understand well (because it seemed to go over my head), I usually still finish reading the material, trying to absorb a very handwavey gist or general structure of the idea, avoiding the need for closure and leaving large chunks unclear. Then, after several days, I often find that I now almost magically understand it because it just clicked without me even being aware of it.
- mgoetzke 7y ago
  It is highly dependent on the person (and book) indeed. I always preferred book reading and learning like that. Carefully thinking it through and then working on it. Worked well so far. But over time (especially reading material from my kids classes) I see a lot of tiny mistakes, left out information, or imprecise statements which make me wonder whether I just did not see that before or quality of school books etc did degrade.
dathinab 7y ago
I see this wrt. Software Development all the time. There are Tons of Online Curses, Books and other self learning material but: 1. Completely self learned people are more often prone to develop some bad habits or worse have some subtil but fundamental misunderstandings which are hard to get out of them. (in my experience) 2. Often just a view month with proper guidance can have much better effects then a year+ of self study or "isolated" experience. The problem most times not the general ideas but the details, wrt. the situations for which there are no clear rules you can "just" apply. And often making a wrong decisions doesn't matter that much and sometimes fall under "programming style", but there are hundreds of such small decisions and making many somewhat suboptimal decisions can easily pill up and cause serious problems. Best example is KISS (Keep it Stupid Simple). Seems easy right, but what does simple mean? Is less code more simple. Are less sanity checks or maybe less validation more simple (due to less additional complexity in them)? Is using less abstractions more simple, even if more abstraction allow you to have code which is harder to get wrong when writing/changing it, _assuming_ you got the abstraction right? Is it more simple to sometimes just repeat yourself, or should you keep strictly to DRY? Is it more simple to sometimes explicitly write out type which would be inferred anyway? What about kinda unnecessary temporary variables? What if it's like `var valid = ...; if valid { }`? What about splitting functions, is it more simple to have 2 pseudo independent sub-functions you will not reuse or one slightly to large function where everything is in the same place? The answer is always: It depends on the exact situation. There is no clear cut definition of simple. The best would probably be based on code readability. But then is it more readable to have one large function body or to split it into sub-functions which are well named but to which you have to explicitly navigate to "fully" understand all details of that function? Sure we do have guidelines and they allow you to generally get it right (well ok, if you use some good guidelines, there are many bad ones, too). But there is a limit on how much you can learn from them and the rest needs practice. But many problems only show if you do large projects by yourself _and care to maintain and reflect on them, and come to the right conclusion unbiased by the programming language induced bubble you are in_ which is super time consuming. (So guidance is important, but hardly done as many companies do not plan in any time for that at all).
- ericb 7y ago
  > 1. Completely self learned people are more often prone to develop some bad habits or worse have some subtil but fundamental misunderstandings which are hard to get out of them. (in my experience) I don't find this is particularly true of self-taught people. People who are raised in bad coding environments like working alone or, project-based consulting shops may have bad habits. Hint: the habits are not taught in school.
irjustin 7y ago
This is the methodology of Gap Year[0] and ideally filled with some sort of extended internship, which I personally subscribe to even though I didn't do it - simply wish I did. Theory is definitely fantastic, but not being exposed to the real world took me longer to come to grips with than it probably should have. I think book-learning has great return on investments when applied critically. The problem is when it's applied dogmatically like it is today. Not everyone needs to go to college - for profit schools are scum. Universities can hardly call themselves impartial, but it still has a place and is useful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year
adaisadais 7y ago
Wow I couldn’t agree more! I found myself bored in school and often would skip class to go to my off campus job to make money. I was poor and wanted the short-sighted immediate success of income. However, looking back I regret not taking classes that actually interested me. My school (like I would presume most) had a rigorous course schedule that one needed to adhere to in order to graduate. I think in taking classes I was actually interested in I would have (and the ones I took in the curriculum that I was interested in I got A’s) done much better overall. Maybe I should have gone to a liberal arts school? Either way I’ve supplanted my lack of A’s with lots of books. It’s made up a lot of the difference so far!
bjelkeman-again 7y ago
I am, sort of, doing an apprenticeship right now. We are building an indoor aquaponics pilot (290 m2/3100 sqft facility). Aquaponics is growing fish, bacteria and vegetables in a recirculating water based system. We are doing this “from scratch” (obviously buying pumps, sensors, tanks etc of the shelf). At the same time I am learning aquaculture (growing fish) in a formal two semester course, as well as reading a bunch of books on the subject. We are also planning an insect larvae farm, to use food waste as feed, to partially feed the fish. It turns out there is a massive amount of things to learn. I am lucky my colleagues are full of different expertise than what I have. The know how to grow plants, build buildings, mechanical engineering, electronics, software, sales, the list goes on. It is somewhat scary how complex everything is, but it is amazing to build the thing with your own hands and see it gradually come to fruition. I am learning so many thins that I can’t learn from a book. We are building this ourselves to learn by doing, as we don’t want to scale up without significant hands on experience.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  That sounds incredibly interesting, do you have a site for the project?
  - bjelkeman-again 7y ago
    Nothing in English yet, a we so far are aiming at local production with local customers. But this site will have at least partial translations. Working on a build log right now. http://cirkularodling.se/ http://cirkularodling.se/
- adenverd 7y ago
  Would love to learn more about this. Any resources you can recommend?
  - bjelkeman-again 7y ago
    Depends on which level you start. The FAO small scale aquaponics manual http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/publications/details-publication/en/c/338354/ http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/publications/details-... The Aquaponics Farmer (some quibbles, don’t sterilise the water with UV constantly) https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Farmer-Complete-Operating-Commercial-ebook/dp/B074BW31CZ/ https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Farmer-Complete-Operating-C... Commercial Aquaponics systems, Wil Leonard (the book and other resources) http://www.aquaponic.com.au/index.htm http://www.aquaponic.com.au/index.htm Small scale mealworm farming https://www.mealwormfarming.org/ https://www.mealwormfarming.org/
c3534l 7y ago
You need both. It's unfortunate that we separate out the two. It wasn't until the second semester of my third year of my accounting degree that we actually had a project where we would get fake checks we had to enter into the books, fill out, and put in a folder called "mailed." This should have been day 1 and we should have learned what it was we were doing as we were doing it. And this should have prepared us for some sort of internship. On the other hand, I've met coders who somehow have managed to completely miss very basic CS concepts because they learned the entire thing ad hoc as they needed it and they never realized that they needed Big O, or that they needed to learn how modulo works. For me, I flunked out of math my entire life until I learned coding and was able to find the answers to "what is this used for?" so I could put it into context. Book learning is good, but it's easier (at least for me) if you have a scaffolding of experience to know where to put each new thing you're learning. Never neglect either!
- ImaCake 7y ago
  >For me, I flunked out of math my entire life until I learned coding and was able to find the answers to "what is this used for?" so I could put it into context. When all I used math for was wetlab biology work I found it tedious and annoying. Teaching myself how to code (for data analysis) made me go from disliking maths to loving it. It is easy to see how powerful and beautiful math is now.
  - cercatrova 7y ago
    This feels like me with category theory and types. Once I learned an ML (OCaml) I understood the power of types and higher level abstractions. I think people also confuse mathematics with arithmetic. I dislike the latter (much better automated than manually done) and love the former.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  Agreed. A half-and-half course that was half degree, half practical would be pretty ideal. Some of these do exist, but they tend to be small experimental courses that not many people take. I would: I don't think studying for 3 years upfront makes sense for most people. It would be better to spread learning out more.
reaperducer 7y ago
This is why I think people should still learn their job through hands-on apprenticeship Isn't that what internships are for?
awb 7y ago
I largely agree that hands on experience is much better than book learning. I hope higher education moves towards this model instead of lectures. However, in some jobs you do need a basic understanding of terminology and history. But probably 6-12 months of concentrated book learning is more than sufficient rather than 4+ years.
harikb 7y ago
While I agree in theory, you are grossly underestimating the amount racism and other forms of phobia that still exists among humans. When “apprenticeship” was the only way to learn, there was no opportunity for the unfortunate ones. School, granted they do a mediocre job, are at least legislated to be fair, secular, and what have you to the those who are otherwise shunned, poor and unfortunate
xorfish 7y ago
This is mostly the system we have in Switzerland. Only around 20% of teens go directly from school to an university. The rest makes a three or four year long apprenticeship, starting at age 15-16. Apprentices get compensated in the range of 500 to 2000 chf per month. You can combine the apprenticeship with a secondary education that allows you to go to universities of applied science to study engineering, computer science or whatever it is you are interested in. So most Swiss with a tertiary education got some practical experience before they stated their tertiary education.

feanaro 7y ago

> Nothing I read in a book sticks until I have tried my hand at it for a few weeks. I don't think this is universal, though. Book reading is very natural for me and sticks immediately. In fact, I often find that things I've read today and not understood become magically clear a few days later.

zionic 7y ago
I'm the complete opposite. I'm convinced my brain has some kind of overly aggressive internal garbage collection. Knowledge/tools that I haven't derived utility/benefit from get purged. I will say that something I've book-learned in the past can be re-learned more rapidly if I run into that problem in the future, but it's grossly inefficient and of little benefit.
- ErikAugust 7y ago
  I have found this to be true, but I think the key to absorbing things is to figure out how to associate it with benefit/utility.
combatentropy 7y ago
I can see it going both ways, depending on how narrowly you define "new thing." I have never written a program in Go but could probably pick it up through reading, because I have years of experience with other languages. But I pity the poor programmer trying to set up everything for the first time, alone. Or my first try at home repair was daunting. But now that I have fixed a few simple things I have a better feel for it and might be okay learning the next thing with a book. I think this is partly why some people like watching Youtube videos and others just want an article.
grawprog 7y ago
I've found I need both myself. I learn best when I read something and then shortly after get practical practice using what I just read. I find i'll forget little details of what I read if I don't use it right away, but they'll stick if I do something with it right away.
- feanaro 7y ago
  I agree, I've come to appreciate the practical aspects too and feel like I'm now using them synergistically. I'd still say theoretical reading is my primary learning mode.
edflsafoiewq 7y ago
Doesn't that mean it doesn't stick immediately? I've always assumed that's because you're sort of mulling it over in the back of your head.
- feanaro 7y ago
  If I understood it the first time, it usually sticks very well. I'm refraining from saying completely and always because it's obviously not an absolute. What I meant with that last sentence was that even for material I did not understand well (because it seemed to go over my head), I usually still finish reading the material, trying to absorb a very handwavey gist or general structure of the idea, avoiding the need for closure and leaving large chunks unclear. Then, after several days, I often find that I now almost magically understand it because it just clicked without me even being aware of it.
mgoetzke 7y ago
It is highly dependent on the person (and book) indeed. I always preferred book reading and learning like that. Carefully thinking it through and then working on it. Worked well so far. But over time (especially reading material from my kids classes) I see a lot of tiny mistakes, left out information, or imprecise statements which make me wonder whether I just did not see that before or quality of school books etc did degrade.

dathinab 7y ago

I see this wrt. Software Development all the time. There are Tons of Online Curses, Books and other self learning material but: 1. Completely self learned people are more often prone to develop some bad habits or worse have some subtil but fundamental misunderstandings which are hard to get out of them. (in my experience) 2. Often just a view month with proper guidance can have much better effects then a year+ of self study or "isolated" experience. The problem most times not the general ideas but the details, wrt. the situations for which there are no clear rules you can "just" apply. And often making a wrong decisions doesn't matter that much and sometimes fall under "programming style", but there are hundreds of such small decisions and making many somewhat suboptimal decisions can easily pill up and cause serious problems. Best example is KISS (Keep it Stupid Simple). Seems easy right, but what does simple mean? Is less code more simple. Are less sanity checks or maybe less validation more simple (due to less additional complexity in them)? Is using less abstractions more simple, even if more abstraction allow you to have code which is harder to get wrong when writing/changing it, _assuming_ you got the abstraction right? Is it more simple to sometimes just repeat yourself, or should you keep strictly to DRY? Is it more simple to sometimes explicitly write out type which would be inferred anyway? What about kinda unnecessary temporary variables? What if it's like `var valid = ...; if valid { }`? What about splitting functions, is it more simple to have 2 pseudo independent sub-functions you will not reuse or one slightly to large function where everything is in the same place? The answer is always: It depends on the exact situation. There is no clear cut definition of simple. The best would probably be based on code readability. But then is it more readable to have one large function body or to split it into sub-functions which are well named but to which you have to explicitly navigate to "fully" understand all details of that function? Sure we do have guidelines and they allow you to generally get it right (well ok, if you use some good guidelines, there are many bad ones, too). But there is a limit on how much you can learn from them and the rest needs practice. But many problems only show if you do large projects by yourself _and care to maintain and reflect on them, and come to the right conclusion unbiased by the programming language induced bubble you are in_ which is super time consuming. (So guidance is important, but hardly done as many companies do not plan in any time for that at all).

ericb 7y ago
> 1. Completely self learned people are more often prone to develop some bad habits or worse have some subtil but fundamental misunderstandings which are hard to get out of them. (in my experience) I don't find this is particularly true of self-taught people. People who are raised in bad coding environments like working alone or, project-based consulting shops may have bad habits. Hint: the habits are not taught in school.

irjustin 7y ago

This is the methodology of Gap Year[0] and ideally filled with some sort of extended internship, which I personally subscribe to even though I didn't do it - simply wish I did. Theory is definitely fantastic, but not being exposed to the real world took me longer to come to grips with than it probably should have. I think book-learning has great return on investments when applied critically. The problem is when it's applied dogmatically like it is today. Not everyone needs to go to college - for profit schools are scum. Universities can hardly call themselves impartial, but it still has a place and is useful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year

adaisadais 7y ago

Wow I couldn’t agree more! I found myself bored in school and often would skip class to go to my off campus job to make money. I was poor and wanted the short-sighted immediate success of income. However, looking back I regret not taking classes that actually interested me. My school (like I would presume most) had a rigorous course schedule that one needed to adhere to in order to graduate. I think in taking classes I was actually interested in I would have (and the ones I took in the curriculum that I was interested in I got A’s) done much better overall. Maybe I should have gone to a liberal arts school? Either way I’ve supplanted my lack of A’s with lots of books. It’s made up a lot of the difference so far!

bjelkeman-again 7y ago

I am, sort of, doing an apprenticeship right now. We are building an indoor aquaponics pilot (290 m2/3100 sqft facility). Aquaponics is growing fish, bacteria and vegetables in a recirculating water based system. We are doing this “from scratch” (obviously buying pumps, sensors, tanks etc of the shelf). At the same time I am learning aquaculture (growing fish) in a formal two semester course, as well as reading a bunch of books on the subject. We are also planning an insect larvae farm, to use food waste as feed, to partially feed the fish. It turns out there is a massive amount of things to learn. I am lucky my colleagues are full of different expertise than what I have. The know how to grow plants, build buildings, mechanical engineering, electronics, software, sales, the list goes on. It is somewhat scary how complex everything is, but it is amazing to build the thing with your own hands and see it gradually come to fruition. I am learning so many thins that I can’t learn from a book. We are building this ourselves to learn by doing, as we don’t want to scale up without significant hands on experience.

buzzkillington 7y ago
That sounds incredibly interesting, do you have a site for the project?
- bjelkeman-again 7y ago
  Nothing in English yet, a we so far are aiming at local production with local customers. But this site will have at least partial translations. Working on a build log right now. http://cirkularodling.se/ http://cirkularodling.se/
adenverd 7y ago
Would love to learn more about this. Any resources you can recommend?
- bjelkeman-again 7y ago
  Depends on which level you start. The FAO small scale aquaponics manual http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/publications/details-publication/en/c/338354/ http://www.fao.org/in-action/globefish/publications/details-... The Aquaponics Farmer (some quibbles, don’t sterilise the water with UV constantly) https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Farmer-Complete-Operating-Commercial-ebook/dp/B074BW31CZ/ https://www.amazon.com/Aquaponic-Farmer-Complete-Operating-C... Commercial Aquaponics systems, Wil Leonard (the book and other resources) http://www.aquaponic.com.au/index.htm http://www.aquaponic.com.au/index.htm Small scale mealworm farming https://www.mealwormfarming.org/ https://www.mealwormfarming.org/

c3534l 7y ago

You need both. It's unfortunate that we separate out the two. It wasn't until the second semester of my third year of my accounting degree that we actually had a project where we would get fake checks we had to enter into the books, fill out, and put in a folder called "mailed." This should have been day 1 and we should have learned what it was we were doing as we were doing it. And this should have prepared us for some sort of internship. On the other hand, I've met coders who somehow have managed to completely miss very basic CS concepts because they learned the entire thing ad hoc as they needed it and they never realized that they needed Big O, or that they needed to learn how modulo works. For me, I flunked out of math my entire life until I learned coding and was able to find the answers to "what is this used for?" so I could put it into context. Book learning is good, but it's easier (at least for me) if you have a scaffolding of experience to know where to put each new thing you're learning. Never neglect either!

ImaCake 7y ago
>For me, I flunked out of math my entire life until I learned coding and was able to find the answers to "what is this used for?" so I could put it into context. When all I used math for was wetlab biology work I found it tedious and annoying. Teaching myself how to code (for data analysis) made me go from disliking maths to loving it. It is easy to see how powerful and beautiful math is now.
- cercatrova 7y ago
  This feels like me with category theory and types. Once I learned an ML (OCaml) I understood the power of types and higher level abstractions. I think people also confuse mathematics with arithmetic. I dislike the latter (much better automated than manually done) and love the former.
nicoburns 7y ago
Agreed. A half-and-half course that was half degree, half practical would be pretty ideal. Some of these do exist, but they tend to be small experimental courses that not many people take. I would: I don't think studying for 3 years upfront makes sense for most people. It would be better to spread learning out more.

reaperducer 7y ago

This is why I think people should still learn their job through hands-on apprenticeship Isn't that what internships are for?

awb 7y ago

I largely agree that hands on experience is much better than book learning. I hope higher education moves towards this model instead of lectures. However, in some jobs you do need a basic understanding of terminology and history. But probably 6-12 months of concentrated book learning is more than sufficient rather than 4+ years.

harikb 7y ago

While I agree in theory, you are grossly underestimating the amount racism and other forms of phobia that still exists among humans. When “apprenticeship” was the only way to learn, there was no opportunity for the unfortunate ones. School, granted they do a mediocre job, are at least legislated to be fair, secular, and what have you to the those who are otherwise shunned, poor and unfortunate

xorfish 7y ago

This is mostly the system we have in Switzerland. Only around 20% of teens go directly from school to an university. The rest makes a three or four year long apprenticeship, starting at age 15-16. Apprentices get compensated in the range of 500 to 2000 chf per month. You can combine the apprenticeship with a secondary education that allows you to go to universities of applied science to study engineering, computer science or whatever it is you are interested in. So most Swiss with a tertiary education got some practical experience before they stated their tertiary education.