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Honestly, it was so validating to see this post. Thank you to the author for writing it, and to mooreds for sharing it.

by spdustin 5y ago

leesec 5y ago
Agreed! Reminds me of Dan Abramov's post where he talks about what he doesn't know. We need more of these!
- ilaksh 5y ago
  But this isn't about what you know or don't know. It's about the most expedient way to solve a problem. A lot of times, you might know enough to figure it out within five or ten minutes, but if you Google it, that goes down to 30-60 seconds.
- sseagull 5y ago
  There was a website once where people would (anonymously) admit to things that they should know but don’t. Like a developer admitting they didn’t know basic command line commands and stuff, or a scientist admitting they didn’t understand calculus. Anyone have any memory of what that site was? It was sort of a site dedicated to imposter syndrome.
  - albert_e 5y ago
    Minor nit .. Imposter syndrome is when you THINK/FEEL you don't know enough for a particular job role or situation. What you describe seems to be small instances of ACTUALLY NOT KNOWING a small fact / nugget and needing to look it up (not really devastating but might reinforce one's imposter syndrome). Feels slightly different?
    - aulin 5y ago
      Nope, imposter syndrome is when you're perfectly capable of doing a job but you don't know everything your role is supposed to know. You can be a successful scientist in a math-heavy field without having to do any pen and paper calculus ever. But you're supposed to be good at it, hence you feel like an imposter. Just like when you've been writing code for years and then they tell you're supposed to know how to write algorithms on a white board.
      - crtasm 5y ago
        This is incorrect - it's not about lacking bits of knowledge expected for a role, it's when someone feels like a fraud and undeserving of their status despite being entirely competent.
        aulin 5y ago
        You can be entirely competent for a role and do it successfully while still feeling like you're missing fundamental knowledge you won't ever need to accomplish your job but that it's commonly perceived as a requisite. That can generate anxiety as you believe someone will at some point discover what you perceive as ignorance.
        crtasm 5y ago
        Sure, but that is not imposter syndrome.
        aulin 5y ago
        Don't know, I'm still not convinced. The term deals more with the outcome, feeling like a fraud while being perfectly capable of fulfilling a role, than the reasons that could spawn those feelings. In my opinion feeling you lack knowledge you don't really need could be one of those reasons. Another could be you come from a different background than your peers and you feel somewhat inferior for being atypical.
    - sseagull 5y ago
      I agree. But imposter syndrome is exacerbated by thinking/feeling that everyone around you knows so much more than you, when in reality they (probably) don’t. The site was dedicated to breaking down the illusion that everyone around you knows everything, and it is only you that doesn’t understand something.
  - rgovostes 5y ago
    Sounds like a subset of the content on PostSecret: https://postsecret.com https://postsecret.com
awb 5y ago
After coding professionally for 15+ years I still use GDD (Google-Drive Development). I was embarrassed by it for a long time and attempted to memorize Git commands, standard libraries, keyboard shortcuts, etc. with little to no long-term success and lots of time invested. Glad to see others also relying on external knowledge rather than trying to internalize everything.
- pcthrowaway 5y ago
  I do google-driven development too, but I think you should have 90% of git commands you use memorized. Of course if I need to do something fancy like purge something from history, merge two repos, etc. I'm going to be googling it, but this is fewer than 1% of your regular git commands. If you have to google every time you need to cherry-pick, rebase, amend a commit, etc. (and you do these things frequently like I do) I suspect you're spending a lot more time in google than you need to. I would get at least 10% less done in a day if I was doing this. That's fine, but these things also add up. If I don't remember most of my 90% actions then I'm effectively operating at 20%. An example with English (and I suspect many other languages have a similar statistic), is that 75% of communication is limited to a set of the 800 most commonly-used words. If you learn these 800 words you can communicate effectively without having to look things up. But if you don't have a functional vocabulary and you have to write an essay in English, the essay will take 10 times as long to write; you'll need to consult a reference for almost every word you need to use.

Honestly, it was so validating to see this post. Thank you to the author for writing it, and to mooreds for sharing it.

leesec 5y ago

Agreed! Reminds me of Dan Abramov's post where he talks about what he doesn't know. We need more of these!

ilaksh 5y ago
But this isn't about what you know or don't know. It's about the most expedient way to solve a problem. A lot of times, you might know enough to figure it out within five or ten minutes, but if you Google it, that goes down to 30-60 seconds.
sseagull 5y ago
There was a website once where people would (anonymously) admit to things that they should know but don’t. Like a developer admitting they didn’t know basic command line commands and stuff, or a scientist admitting they didn’t understand calculus. Anyone have any memory of what that site was? It was sort of a site dedicated to imposter syndrome.
- albert_e 5y ago
  Minor nit .. Imposter syndrome is when you THINK/FEEL you don't know enough for a particular job role or situation. What you describe seems to be small instances of ACTUALLY NOT KNOWING a small fact / nugget and needing to look it up (not really devastating but might reinforce one's imposter syndrome). Feels slightly different?
  - aulin 5y ago
    Nope, imposter syndrome is when you're perfectly capable of doing a job but you don't know everything your role is supposed to know. You can be a successful scientist in a math-heavy field without having to do any pen and paper calculus ever. But you're supposed to be good at it, hence you feel like an imposter. Just like when you've been writing code for years and then they tell you're supposed to know how to write algorithms on a white board.
    - crtasm 5y ago
      This is incorrect - it's not about lacking bits of knowledge expected for a role, it's when someone feels like a fraud and undeserving of their status despite being entirely competent.
      - aulin 5y ago
        You can be entirely competent for a role and do it successfully while still feeling like you're missing fundamental knowledge you won't ever need to accomplish your job but that it's commonly perceived as a requisite. That can generate anxiety as you believe someone will at some point discover what you perceive as ignorance.
        crtasm 5y ago
        Sure, but that is not imposter syndrome.
        aulin 5y ago
        Don't know, I'm still not convinced. The term deals more with the outcome, feeling like a fraud while being perfectly capable of fulfilling a role, than the reasons that could spawn those feelings. In my opinion feeling you lack knowledge you don't really need could be one of those reasons. Another could be you come from a different background than your peers and you feel somewhat inferior for being atypical.
  - sseagull 5y ago
    I agree. But imposter syndrome is exacerbated by thinking/feeling that everyone around you knows so much more than you, when in reality they (probably) don’t. The site was dedicated to breaking down the illusion that everyone around you knows everything, and it is only you that doesn’t understand something.
- rgovostes 5y ago
  Sounds like a subset of the content on PostSecret: https://postsecret.com https://postsecret.com

awb 5y ago

After coding professionally for 15+ years I still use GDD (Google-Drive Development). I was embarrassed by it for a long time and attempted to memorize Git commands, standard libraries, keyboard shortcuts, etc. with little to no long-term success and lots of time invested. Glad to see others also relying on external knowledge rather than trying to internalize everything.

pcthrowaway 5y ago
I do google-driven development too, but I think you should have 90% of git commands you use memorized. Of course if I need to do something fancy like purge something from history, merge two repos, etc. I'm going to be googling it, but this is fewer than 1% of your regular git commands. If you have to google every time you need to cherry-pick, rebase, amend a commit, etc. (and you do these things frequently like I do) I suspect you're spending a lot more time in google than you need to. I would get at least 10% less done in a day if I was doing this. That's fine, but these things also add up. If I don't remember most of my 90% actions then I'm effectively operating at 20%. An example with English (and I suspect many other languages have a similar statistic), is that 75% of communication is limited to a set of the 800 most commonly-used words. If you learn these 800 words you can communicate effectively without having to look things up. But if you don't have a functional vocabulary and you have to write an essay in English, the essay will take 10 times as long to write; you'll need to consult a reference for almost every word you need to use.