5 ms·

Unless you are paid to read papers and implement cutting edge stuff, your time is better spent leetcoding that has a direct short term impact on maximizing your

Unless you are paid to read papers and implement cutting edge stuff, your time is better spent leetcoding that has a direct short term impact on maximizing your TC.

aaron695 5y ago
tomasreimers 5y ago
Can't tell if sarcasm. If not, do you believe there is value in education beyond optimizing TC?
- wanderingmind 5y ago
  Belief in value of education beyond TC is (1) inversely proportional to the number of mouths to feed and (2) directly proportional to the outstanding equity in trust accounts
  - rfrey 5y ago
    That's a weird thing to say on a website that values curiosity above almost everything else.
- gautamdivgi 5y ago
  Probably after you retire or if you don't have any dependents. The moment you have dependents (kids), parents you need to take care of and the subsequent load of mortgages, university fees, medical insurance and what not... optimizing TC suddenly looks like the best investment compared to any other education. I'm speaking from experience. I got a PhD while working full-time. I enjoyed it and it gave me a lot of perspective. But - if I'd spent even 1/6th the time LC'ing I'd probably have a much higher TC at this point :). No regrets - but its an amusing thought that kinda lurks in the background.
  - nnadams 5y ago
    Any advice on doing a PhD while working? I've been considering doing that in the back of my mind.
    - gautamdivgi 5y ago
      Here you go.. I put this blog together a long time back - https://gautamdivgi.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/my-part-time-phd/ https://gautamdivgi.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/my-part-time-ph...
sundarurfriend 5y ago
> on maximizing your TC. What's TC in this context?
- Shugarl 5y ago
  Total compensation. It really annoyed me to not know what it meant, so I spend a bit of time finding that
Silamoth 5y ago
But reading papers is fun and cool. You get to learn new things. If you read recent papers, you learn things that aren't just new to you but new to the entire world; you can literally learn cutting-edge things that were discovered recently. And if you read older papers, you can better understand why the world is the way it is right now. Putting TC aside (don't most programmers make plenty anyways?), isn't it just cool to learn new and cutting-edge things? Personally, I think so. Curiosity is central to what it means to be a hacker.

Unless you are paid to read papers and implement cutting edge stuff, your time is better spent leetcoding that has a direct short term impact on maximizing your TC.

aaron695 5y ago

tomasreimers 5y ago

Can't tell if sarcasm. If not, do you believe there is value in education beyond optimizing TC?

wanderingmind 5y ago
Belief in value of education beyond TC is (1) inversely proportional to the number of mouths to feed and (2) directly proportional to the outstanding equity in trust accounts
- rfrey 5y ago
  That's a weird thing to say on a website that values curiosity above almost everything else.
gautamdivgi 5y ago
Probably after you retire or if you don't have any dependents. The moment you have dependents (kids), parents you need to take care of and the subsequent load of mortgages, university fees, medical insurance and what not... optimizing TC suddenly looks like the best investment compared to any other education. I'm speaking from experience. I got a PhD while working full-time. I enjoyed it and it gave me a lot of perspective. But - if I'd spent even 1/6th the time LC'ing I'd probably have a much higher TC at this point :). No regrets - but its an amusing thought that kinda lurks in the background.
- nnadams 5y ago
  Any advice on doing a PhD while working? I've been considering doing that in the back of my mind.
  - gautamdivgi 5y ago
    Here you go.. I put this blog together a long time back - https://gautamdivgi.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/my-part-time-phd/ https://gautamdivgi.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/my-part-time-ph...

sundarurfriend 5y ago

> on maximizing your TC. What's TC in this context?

Shugarl 5y ago
Total compensation. It really annoyed me to not know what it meant, so I spend a bit of time finding that

Silamoth 5y ago

But reading papers is fun and cool. You get to learn new things. If you read recent papers, you learn things that aren't just new to you but new to the entire world; you can literally learn cutting-edge things that were discovered recently. And if you read older papers, you can better understand why the world is the way it is right now. Putting TC aside (don't most programmers make plenty anyways?), isn't it just cool to learn new and cutting-edge things? Personally, I think so. Curiosity is central to what it means to be a hacker.