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That's something I really miss. Having studied and worked in a developing country, I learned too late about these giants and it took me years to grasp the philo

by mehdix 5y ago

That's something I really miss. Having studied and worked in a developing country, I learned too late about these giants and it took me years to grasp the philosophy behind their great works and literally _unlearn_ and _relearn_ things. It is IMO a privilege to be exposed to great minds early in your education and carreer.

908B64B197 5y ago
> took me years to grasp the philosophy behind their great works and literally _unlearn_ and _relearn_ things What did you have to unlearn and relearn? > It is IMO a privilege to be exposed to great minds early in your education and carreer. It's a lot of hard work to get exposed to these individuals. Getting into Princeton is no small feat.
- _nalply 5y ago
  > What did you have to unlearn and relearn? Twenty years ago I worked for 6 months in India as a consultant intern to Indian programmers. My experience is that Indian programmers are very gifted and clever but caught in everyday hustle. They tend to work chaotically, misunderstand requirements and lack long-term and fundamental thinking. I understand that because as I experienced it myself they had to fight with everyday annoying nuisances like power going off unpredictably. I had the luxury of a laptop (then a high-end 486 Compaq one) so I could shutdown at leisure but I vividly remember the many times light going off suddenly the nights and everybody moaning. We were programming in server-side JavaScript, many years before Node was a thing. I imagine GP meant unlearning short-term thinking.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > They tend to work chaotically, misunderstand requirements and lack long-term and fundamental thinking That's something I had never considered. It's probably the traits I value the most when looking back to what makes an engineer successful. > they had to fight with everyday annoying nuisances like power going off unpredictably. They know they could just get an UPS right? They are pretty cheap.

by mehdix 5y ago

908B64B197 5y ago

> took me years to grasp the philosophy behind their great works and literally _unlearn_ and _relearn_ things What did you have to unlearn and relearn? > It is IMO a privilege to be exposed to great minds early in your education and carreer. It's a lot of hard work to get exposed to these individuals. Getting into Princeton is no small feat.

_nalply 5y ago
> What did you have to unlearn and relearn? Twenty years ago I worked for 6 months in India as a consultant intern to Indian programmers. My experience is that Indian programmers are very gifted and clever but caught in everyday hustle. They tend to work chaotically, misunderstand requirements and lack long-term and fundamental thinking. I understand that because as I experienced it myself they had to fight with everyday annoying nuisances like power going off unpredictably. I had the luxury of a laptop (then a high-end 486 Compaq one) so I could shutdown at leisure but I vividly remember the many times light going off suddenly the nights and everybody moaning. We were programming in server-side JavaScript, many years before Node was a thing. I imagine GP meant unlearning short-term thinking.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > They tend to work chaotically, misunderstand requirements and lack long-term and fundamental thinking That's something I had never considered. It's probably the traits I value the most when looking back to what makes an engineer successful. > they had to fight with everyday annoying nuisances like power going off unpredictably. They know they could just get an UPS right? They are pretty cheap.