3 ms·

You might want to work on that. There's something to be said for mastery and it seems risky as fuck to require the presence of the cloud, let alone a few websit

by tomc1985 5y ago

You might want to work on that. There's something to be said for mastery and it seems risky as fuck to require the presence of the cloud, let alone a few websites, to be able to work. It seems like mastery and knowledge just for the sake of it is less of a priority these days. Why bother wiping your ass when the cloud can do it for you?

cbsmith 5y ago
Master != memorization Relying on a reference as a guide is not necessarily a sign of a lack of mastery any more than not using a reference is a sign of mastery. Sure, there is always the possibility that a reference won't be available when you might need it, but for the obvious exception, perfect recall is not what mastery is about.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  > Master != memorization Memorization is not all of mastery but it sure is a large part of it. Like, I get it, I can't memorize for shit and I rely on Google/SO to an uncomfortable degree for programming, but that is more because they are the most convenient. If you can't function because Google is down, when you should be looking in an offline reference like a local copy of the docs, library code, a man page, or a book, then I would consider that to be a pretty crucial gap and weakness in technique. Resourcefulness is another component of mastery, and, frankly, even more important than memorization in my book. It's the same thing for so many other parts of life... just because you use Google Maps to navigate doesn't mean you shouldn't also know how to read a map and navigate on your own.
  - cbsmith 5y ago
    > Memorization is not all of mastery but it sure is a large part of it. Not at all. Memorization is a common side-effect of mastery, just like mastering a lot of physical activities tends to have a side-effect of improved strength, endurance, etc. No question there's a lot of correlation between memory and mastery, but that's not the same as being an essential component of it. An elderly master of a physical activity might well have a significantly deteriorated physique and still have mastery, and dementia patients can retain mastery of musical instruments, jigsaw puzzles or contract bridge (even if they can't name the suits, let alone articulate simple bidding rules) despite severe deterioration of their memory as applied to those specific skills. > If you can't function because Google is down, when you should be looking in an offline reference like a local copy of the docs, library code, a man page, or a book, then I would consider that to be a pretty crucial gap and weakness in technique. You might consider it a crucial gap and weakness. I might frame it more positively, that it's a great advantage to NOT have to rely on a reference tool. However mastery does not preclude weakness. Heck, master writers like Robert Caro, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, and Don DeLillo have spoken in detail about being dependent on their old school tools and are unable to take advantage of the benefits of modern writing tools, and there are other writers for whom the reverse is true! No one suggests they are anything less than masters of their craft. Certainly, resourcefulness is an important skill, and a resourceful person with poor memory will have lots of ways of getting by without having to remember things. However, there's a bit of a limit to what's reasonable and important for mastery. Sure, a resourceful soccer player can still apply their craft without a ball or a field, but really, how useful is their skill? In distributed computing, people often absurdly complain about how an application node behaves when the network is down, which raises the interesting question of what work the node might be expected to do in that scenario. Similarly, when a software developer can't function without a working computer, or if their network connection is down, that's not great, but might not be all that important if the development work they are doing is entirely dependent on those tools anyway. > It's the same thing for so many other parts of life... just because you use Google Maps to navigate doesn't mean you shouldn't also know how to read a map and navigate on your own. This is a good example, and not just because reading a map and using Google maps are different skills. It's a good example because one can have mastery of map reading without necessarily having memorized a single map or geographical layout. Heck, maps have legends specifically so you don't have to remember much about them in order to use them effectively. Memorizing geography would be a distinct form of mastery separate from map reading.
dntrkv 5y ago
I understand using the official docs to look up some lesser-used parts of an API, but Stackoverflow is pretty useless to me nowadays. Most of the problems I run into are way too specific to my situation for SO to be of any help.

cbsmith 5y ago

Master != memorization Relying on a reference as a guide is not necessarily a sign of a lack of mastery any more than not using a reference is a sign of mastery. Sure, there is always the possibility that a reference won't be available when you might need it, but for the obvious exception, perfect recall is not what mastery is about.

tomc1985 5y ago
> Master != memorization Memorization is not all of mastery but it sure is a large part of it. Like, I get it, I can't memorize for shit and I rely on Google/SO to an uncomfortable degree for programming, but that is more because they are the most convenient. If you can't function because Google is down, when you should be looking in an offline reference like a local copy of the docs, library code, a man page, or a book, then I would consider that to be a pretty crucial gap and weakness in technique. Resourcefulness is another component of mastery, and, frankly, even more important than memorization in my book. It's the same thing for so many other parts of life... just because you use Google Maps to navigate doesn't mean you shouldn't also know how to read a map and navigate on your own.
- cbsmith 5y ago
  > Memorization is not all of mastery but it sure is a large part of it. Not at all. Memorization is a common side-effect of mastery, just like mastering a lot of physical activities tends to have a side-effect of improved strength, endurance, etc. No question there's a lot of correlation between memory and mastery, but that's not the same as being an essential component of it. An elderly master of a physical activity might well have a significantly deteriorated physique and still have mastery, and dementia patients can retain mastery of musical instruments, jigsaw puzzles or contract bridge (even if they can't name the suits, let alone articulate simple bidding rules) despite severe deterioration of their memory as applied to those specific skills. > If you can't function because Google is down, when you should be looking in an offline reference like a local copy of the docs, library code, a man page, or a book, then I would consider that to be a pretty crucial gap and weakness in technique. You might consider it a crucial gap and weakness. I might frame it more positively, that it's a great advantage to NOT have to rely on a reference tool. However mastery does not preclude weakness. Heck, master writers like Robert Caro, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, and Don DeLillo have spoken in detail about being dependent on their old school tools and are unable to take advantage of the benefits of modern writing tools, and there are other writers for whom the reverse is true! No one suggests they are anything less than masters of their craft. Certainly, resourcefulness is an important skill, and a resourceful person with poor memory will have lots of ways of getting by without having to remember things. However, there's a bit of a limit to what's reasonable and important for mastery. Sure, a resourceful soccer player can still apply their craft without a ball or a field, but really, how useful is their skill? In distributed computing, people often absurdly complain about how an application node behaves when the network is down, which raises the interesting question of what work the node might be expected to do in that scenario. Similarly, when a software developer can't function without a working computer, or if their network connection is down, that's not great, but might not be all that important if the development work they are doing is entirely dependent on those tools anyway. > It's the same thing for so many other parts of life... just because you use Google Maps to navigate doesn't mean you shouldn't also know how to read a map and navigate on your own. This is a good example, and not just because reading a map and using Google maps are different skills. It's a good example because one can have mastery of map reading without necessarily having memorized a single map or geographical layout. Heck, maps have legends specifically so you don't have to remember much about them in order to use them effectively. Memorizing geography would be a distinct form of mastery separate from map reading.

dntrkv 5y ago

I understand using the official docs to look up some lesser-used parts of an API, but Stackoverflow is pretty useless to me nowadays. Most of the problems I run into are way too specific to my situation for SO to be of any help.