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> Is this something that we, the developers and designers and UX specialists, should seek to change? We must do our part. We can't do it alone, though. I'm a

> Is this something that we, the developers and designers and UX specialists, should seek to change? We must do our part. We can't do it alone, though. I'm already seeing a distressingly high number of IT people fall prey to invocation practicing. Much of it is due to time pressure from management, but even absent that stressor, I'm quite concerned that there is nil curiosity in peeling back the abstractions, and find the wizard behind the curtains. I'm no Fabrice Bellard by any stretch of the imagination. To compensate, I'm willing to rapidly point out my current limits of understanding when working with others, and to seek how to push it further back. I'm confident given sufficient time, information, and practice, I can master a lot more cognitive subject matter material. Definitely not most much less all available (sometimes raw intellectual firepower is required to even access some material, and most days I'm lucky if I crack one standard deviation above average), but enough to keep a lifetime of the joy of learning busy. I used to be absolutely surrounded IRL by like-minded people in the early days of the personal computer. These days, I've yet to run into that crowd at any gathering IRL (certain online communities tend to sort of scratch that itch for me), and I'd really like to find my people again. To the heart of the question however, we must because otherwise we'll forever be limited by the complexity of what we can model and solve with software. And we'll need a lot, lot more complexity management to solve the really interesting problem spaces still hanging out there.

prewett 6y ago
> ... fall prey to invocation practicing I am unashamedly that way with git. I don't want to learn the mental model of git, I want to accomplish some task with my files so I can go back to coding. I consult the Oracle at Google, and make the suggested incantation. The fact that there are, if I recall correctly, four different incantations for deleting a file, I consider justification for not spending more time with it than I need. Actually, I've appointed a GUI wizard to do most of the incantations for more. Just once I figured out the solution on my own. I felt like a genius. An artificial genius, because source code control shouldn't require geniosity. In general I happen to like computers, so usually I'm usually willing to learn, but as I get older, I find I don't enjoy the prospect of 1) sit down to a task, 0) discover I have to learn something to do it, -1) read up on it, play around, 0) practice, 1) finally start my task.
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  That's okay. We all have varying time pressure vectors. As long as when we find ourselves with that rare free time on our hands, and still find some areas where we apply that learning process, we haven't fallen to cargo cult incantations. As the field grows wider, it is natural to resort to incantations for ever-increasing areas. It is when I tell juniors, "hey, you can take all day to peel apart what you can of whatever you pick, it is a no-meeting day and no tickets need to land in your queue", and they get a deer in the headlights look, that my concern starts rising.

prewett 6y ago

> ... fall prey to invocation practicing I am unashamedly that way with git. I don't want to learn the mental model of git, I want to accomplish some task with my files so I can go back to coding. I consult the Oracle at Google, and make the suggested incantation. The fact that there are, if I recall correctly, four different incantations for deleting a file, I consider justification for not spending more time with it than I need. Actually, I've appointed a GUI wizard to do most of the incantations for more. Just once I figured out the solution on my own. I felt like a genius. An artificial genius, because source code control shouldn't require geniosity. In general I happen to like computers, so usually I'm usually willing to learn, but as I get older, I find I don't enjoy the prospect of 1) sit down to a task, 0) discover I have to learn something to do it, -1) read up on it, play around, 0) practice, 1) finally start my task.

yourapostasy 6y ago
That's okay. We all have varying time pressure vectors. As long as when we find ourselves with that rare free time on our hands, and still find some areas where we apply that learning process, we haven't fallen to cargo cult incantations. As the field grows wider, it is natural to resort to incantations for ever-increasing areas. It is when I tell juniors, "hey, you can take all day to peel apart what you can of whatever you pick, it is a no-meeting day and no tickets need to land in your queue", and they get a deer in the headlights look, that my concern starts rising.