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Reading this leads me to wonder: Is a large part of what makes a "5% programmer" or whatever, that they are so much better at comprehension/figuring-it-out, and
by jrochkind1 6y ago
Reading this leads me to wonder: Is a large part of what makes a "5% programmer" or whatever, that they are so much better at comprehension/figuring-it-out, and retaining what they've figured out for next time?
- jarmitage 6y agoThere will always be some who are freakishly good at manipulating visual symbols on a computer and in their heads. Those people are practically exalted today, whereas their existence should indicate that for the vast majority of people, computers are inhumane and inefficient in the Bret Victor sense: http://worrydream.com/TheHumaneRepresentationOfThought/note.html http://worrydream.com/TheHumaneRepresentationOfThought/note....
- mercer 6y agoI don't consider myself a "5% programmer", but I'd definitely agree that one of the big measures of my improvement as programmer had to do with my ability to quickly figure out how a system works, and my ability to manage the mental models involved. Compared to who I was, say, ten years ago, I'm better at grokking the system in general. But for many projects keeping the entire thing in my head is impossible, so another thing I feel I've gotten better at over time is how to figure out which part of the system I need to hold in my head as I work on things.
- MarkLowenstein 6y agoRelated theory I've had rattling around my brain recently: a programmer's career velocity is strictly correlated with the percentage of code that they deal with every day that is code of their own making, vs. someone else's. I always get so motivated and productive when I'm building off my own stuff, and pretty grumpy and slow when not.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]