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The average person on HN is pretty smart. I see a lot of comments writing this off... it's not their responsibility, the other person should want to learn, etc.

by pen2l 6y ago

The average person on HN is pretty smart. I see a lot of comments writing this off... it's not their responsibility, the other person should want to learn, etc. etc. But if you wanna be a great person who does his civic duty and more to improve mankind, do please help others out in the way I outlined elsewhere, tell them "I used the search query [foo bar] to discover [result-x&y]." You're both answering their question, while teaching them to be helping themselves in the future! I think framing search queries for good results is a bit of an art, and a lot of folks here are really good at it -- please share this skill with the world!

sanderjd 6y ago
I have found this to be the hardest thing to teach at work. I think a lot of times more junior folks thing more senior folks know things, when actually they just spend a lot of time researching things. But I've found it hard to describe how to do that. It's much easier for me to describe how some technique / algorithm / API works than to describe how figure that out from first principles. But it's much more important to learn how to figure things out than it is to learn any specific thing.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I actually think this is a fairly simple thing to teach at work. If I'm being asked a question by a junior, I will frequently go do a few minutes' research, then come back and say "this is the answer, found on these [wiki pages|Slack threads|JIRA tickets|Google docs]. I found it by searching these terms in [appropriate place]." If I'm the one asking, I frequently say "Okay, I can accept that as an answer, but can you show me how you arrived at that?" Both of these things, when done in good faith, are moves that help the ignorant asker to learn. I've never been put off by a sincere request by someone to show them my work, so to speak. I don't think anyone should be put off by asking something like this sincerely, either.
  - sanderjd 6y ago
    What I mean by finding it difficult to teach this is that a lot of times it doesn't sink in, or takes a very long time to. Telling people what search terms you used and how you decided what results to click on, and how you distilled what you found in those results into an answer, still does not provide an easy follow path to coming up with search terms for new problems in the future, having good taste in the results to follow, or distilling results into an answer. There is no step by step guide to coming up with search terms, it seems to largely be a function of experience alone.

by pen2l 6y ago

sanderjd 6y ago

I have found this to be the hardest thing to teach at work. I think a lot of times more junior folks thing more senior folks know things, when actually they just spend a lot of time researching things. But I've found it hard to describe how to do that. It's much easier for me to describe how some technique / algorithm / API works than to describe how figure that out from first principles. But it's much more important to learn how to figure things out than it is to learn any specific thing.

pmiller2 6y ago
I actually think this is a fairly simple thing to teach at work. If I'm being asked a question by a junior, I will frequently go do a few minutes' research, then come back and say "this is the answer, found on these [wiki pages|Slack threads|JIRA tickets|Google docs]. I found it by searching these terms in [appropriate place]." If I'm the one asking, I frequently say "Okay, I can accept that as an answer, but can you show me how you arrived at that?" Both of these things, when done in good faith, are moves that help the ignorant asker to learn. I've never been put off by a sincere request by someone to show them my work, so to speak. I don't think anyone should be put off by asking something like this sincerely, either.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  What I mean by finding it difficult to teach this is that a lot of times it doesn't sink in, or takes a very long time to. Telling people what search terms you used and how you decided what results to click on, and how you distilled what you found in those results into an answer, still does not provide an easy follow path to coming up with search terms for new problems in the future, having good taste in the results to follow, or distilling results into an answer. There is no step by step guide to coming up with search terms, it seems to largely be a function of experience alone.