3 ms·

This is clearly an exaggeration, and I think more of us can relate than we're letting on. Programming, when you've never done it before, is hard! If you're not

This is clearly an exaggeration, and I think more of us can relate than we're letting on. Programming, when you've never done it before, is hard! If you're not willing to put in the hours at least a couple of times in your life, you're probably not going to ever really "get it". At least that was my experience. I never worked like this regularly, but I've had several times where I stayed up way later than I planned because I "just wanted to figure it out". And without that, I don't think I ever would have become a decent programmer.

bob1029 6y ago
I think this is the picture that a lot of junior developers miss. Sure, that 12-16 hour marathon session sounds horrible and unsustainable in many ways, but it's also the fastest way to achieve mastery (or realization, burnout and career change). There are obviously a ton of other variables involved, but time is the most important investment you can make. Ideally, you are also working with practical tools and compelling business requirements on a regular basis. Assuming you survive the first 2-3 years of hell and approach that level of master, you are now in a position to back off your time commitment substantially because every second you spend working as a master is like a lifetime to an apprentice. Gains in mastery in this craft are NOT linear in my experience. It's more like a polynomial or exponential curve. I also think time spent playing with abstractions in isolation from larger projects is also key to obtaining mastery. Much like trying to master a difficult piano concerto. You can't just play it from the top every time or you'd go insane. If you want to find the smartest guy in the room at a Microsoft shop, go look in everyone's users/[username]/source/repos path. Whoever has the highest numbered ConsoleApp wins the prize. Again, no substitute for practice and breaking things. Remember, there are zero consequences if you write shitty code and its still contained to your local machine. You can just type git reset --hard and go to lunch like nothing happened.

bob1029 6y ago

I think this is the picture that a lot of junior developers miss. Sure, that 12-16 hour marathon session sounds horrible and unsustainable in many ways, but it's also the fastest way to achieve mastery (or realization, burnout and career change). There are obviously a ton of other variables involved, but time is the most important investment you can make. Ideally, you are also working with practical tools and compelling business requirements on a regular basis. Assuming you survive the first 2-3 years of hell and approach that level of master, you are now in a position to back off your time commitment substantially because every second you spend working as a master is like a lifetime to an apprentice. Gains in mastery in this craft are NOT linear in my experience. It's more like a polynomial or exponential curve. I also think time spent playing with abstractions in isolation from larger projects is also key to obtaining mastery. Much like trying to master a difficult piano concerto. You can't just play it from the top every time or you'd go insane. If you want to find the smartest guy in the room at a Microsoft shop, go look in everyone's users/[username]/source/repos path. Whoever has the highest numbered ConsoleApp wins the prize. Again, no substitute for practice and breaking things. Remember, there are zero consequences if you write shitty code and its still contained to your local machine. You can just type git reset --hard and go to lunch like nothing happened.