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The main thing to do - and what I told my team yesterday too: * This is not college, you don't have to remember everything, use the internet. * Learn on deman
by eric4smith 6y ago
The main thing to do - and what I told my team yesterday too:
* This is not college, you don't have to remember everything, use the internet.
* Learn on demand. Never read books from cover to cover.
* Do something real with what you're learning. Example, as you're learning a new programming language, be building something real with it.
That's it!
- anonytrary 6y agoWhen it comes to engineering and building stuff, it's a lot like art. First you draw the lines in a rough way, build out the "stick figure" so to speak, then you draw the rest of the owl, slowly turning it into a fully finished piece. It's way better than quitting after having drawn a perfect eyeball. Capture the essence of the vision as soon as possible. You can't come back to finish an eyeball as easily as you can come back to finish a quick sketch. Also, regarding reading books c2c, it depends on the book. The smartest people I know have hundreds of books, but have fully read and re-read like a dozen of the ones that impacted them the most. For the other books, they've picked up snippets, but haven't come close to fully reading them.
- hazz99 6y ago> Also, regarding reading books c2c, it depends on the book. The smartest people I know have hundreds of books, but have fully read and re-read like a dozen of the ones that impacted them the most. For the other books, they've picked up snippets, but haven't come close to fully reading them. I don’t claim to be one those people you describe, but this is also what I’ve found works well. Some books are packed with amazing information, line after line. There is great value in reading the entire thing - the overarching narrative of reading it linearly provides additional value to reading it piecewise. Other books might present one or two great ideas/concepts, but spread them out over a few hundred pages. These are the books I read piecewise, to “get the gist”. The tricky part is knowing which category a book falls into. I imagine there is a level of required prior knowledge/experience before you can do this. Ironically, there are books I used to think weren’t very valuable, or presented “obvious” ideas. Later, I’ve come back and found them incredibly informative. For what I thought was “basic” in my first year of university, I now respect as nuanced and important first principles, for example.
- monsieurbanana 6y ago> * Learn on demand. Never read books from cover to cover. As a blanket advice, I really don't agree. It depends on what books, it depends what they're trying to teach you. Huge difference between a reference book and... pretty much any other kind of books. Many times you don't want to know something, you just want to know something exists/is possible/has already been done. Skimming through books cover to cover is one way to do it.
- ashishmax31 6y agoCouldn't agree more.. Reading CLRS cover to cover and reading SICP cover to cover are two different things.
- SyzygistSix 6y agoCLRS? SICP? What are these?
- phone8675309 6y agoClassic Comp Sci books, specifically: CLRS - Introduction to Algorithms (after the authors - Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, Clifford Stein) SICP - The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Hal Abelson, Jerry Sussman, and Julie Sussman
- faeyanpiraat 6y agoWhich one is the more “cover to cover”-y?
- bekantan 6y agoSICP
- dredmorbius 6y ago"Don't feel compelled to read books cover-to-cover" would be a more useful guide. Many people do, and feel guilt over setting down books. That serves you poorly. Approach books as an inquiry or conversation. See Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book (frequently mentioned on HN). Read with a purpose or goal. (Entertainment and distraction may be goals or purposes.) Some books reward a close comprehensive read. They are rare.
- Puts 6y agoThis sounds like dangerous advice. This will put your team in a position where you constantly just know enough to solve a specific task at hands but never plan ahead.
- lordnacho 6y agoI think of it as "index everything" but dig the details when the mission requires it. So read widely, see a lot of keywords, understand what seems to be commonly accepted as important, but spend the time getting more words over learning to perfection.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago>* Learn on demand. Never read books from cover to cover. I think you are my type of person, in that you learn a little bit on demand, go to work on it and quickly get nearly a complete view of everything and depend on being able to look up stuff you need when you need it. That's great, however you seem to be different than me in that you think your way of learning is the superior one instead of just a different one. I have known some very good programmers that are read the book cover to cover type of learners. In my experience read the book cover to cover types are more strict types of personalities and thus often we do not get along, but when we do it's great because we complement each others skill sets and predilections for how problems should be solved.
- devoutsalsa 6y agoI tried learning everything until it became too much. Now I try to learn the stuff I need. Gives me an appreciation for simple tools.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ZephyrBlu 6y agoI have a similar learning style. As with all things I think there is a tradeoff. It feels superior when you aren't doing anything too complex and when you can iterate quickly with little cost because it's far more time efficient than thorough learning with only minor drawbacks. When I think it falls short is if the problem you're working on requires deep domain knowledge or failure is costly. In this situation, someone who has deep knowledge and who will thoroughly work through the problem will be far better off than the person who learns on demand. The caveat to this is that I think the former situation is _far_ more common in industry than the latter, so to me a learn on demand style is far more useful in practice. I'm sure that some domains would heavily favour a thorough learning style though.
- eric4smith 6y agoI don’t think it’s superior. It’s just works for me and my team.
- bennysonething 6y agoSorry, I really disagree with never read books cover to cover. There are definitely some programming books that are worth reading cover to cover.
- scottyah 6y agoNot to derail the conversation too far, but what are some you've found?
- bennysonething 6y agoCode complete. The elements of computer systems. The pragmatic programmer
- agumonkey 6y agoThere's a little dynamic theory of learning around this. When I get excited I start trying but if I don't reach some escape velocity all the excitement and learning start to hurt my brain. Whenever I finally reach some level of concrete realization then that knowledge turns into pleasure and pride.