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Garbage in -> garbage out. Thank you for your humility. You acknowledge that you're good enough to be dedicated but not good enough to be impressive. If you re-

Garbage in -> garbage out. Thank you for your humility. You acknowledge that you're good enough to be dedicated but not good enough to be impressive. If you re-use your methods, then you would only be creating devs who are again only going to be dedicated not impressive. Any biography of GOAT athletes I've read inevitably depict tremendous personal sacrifice. Whether you call grueling schedules, pushing themselves nearly to their physical and psychological breaking point, as "hustle culture", it's undeniable that the road to greatness is filled with incredible suffering. We would all like to wish ourselves to greatness without putting in the effort that goes with it. Unfortunately, that is not how the world works. Having said that, while positive thinking only goes so far, it's a good salve for anyone in dire straits. In other words, positive thinking won't solve your problems, but it might make you feel momentarily better. Best of luck.

borroka 4y ago
An unfortunate comment. First, GOAT means greatest of all time, which, by definition, means bring beyond impressive. Having a GOAT as a reference for how to conduct one's life sounds nice on Twitter, but in reality it is meaningless for good, great, excellent professionals. Phelps trained 8 hours a day for years, and that has no effect on what I do in my job. But take soccer as an example, where the GOAT could be Pele, Maradona, maybe Messi. All incredibly talented players who didn't work particularly hard, surely not harder than the vast majority of their colleagues. Cruijff was an extraordinary player and then a revolutionary coach who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and went from one woman to another. An attitude not similar to the "mamba" mentality pushed in endless videos and whatnot. One of my favorite authors, Arturo Perez-Reverte, talked about working five hours a day—tremendous consistency, but I bet there are many "amateur" authors who write for more than five hours a day. He seems to lead a pleasant life. And you can find similar examples all over the world. Where I grew up, not in the U.S., there was certainly a focus on dedication, but without the toxic and reckless focus of U.S.-centric Calvinism (now unfortunately quite popular outside the borders of the U.S. as well) on suffering, exhaustion, the "pursuit of greatness," and assorted biblical stories that sound rather ridiculous to those who are not getting high on United States culture day in and day out. "it's undeniable that the road to greatness is filled with incredible suffering." - Nah
- lookagain 4y ago
  > "it's undeniable that the road to greatness is filled with incredible suffering." - Nah Pardon my inquisitive behavior, but a quick peek at your comment history shows that you have spent some time thinking about pedagogy. If your comments can be taken at face value, would you care to elaborate on the path to progress within a field? Surely, a person can't just wish themselves better.
  - borroka 4y ago
    "Surely, a person can't just wish themselves better". One cannot only wish, but wishing is part of it. I have read many biographies of successful people, I have studied the issues of "success" academically, and I have been interested in performance in general for a long time. I have also performed pretty well across physical and mental disciplines. Pedagogy depends on the subject, we know in many fields what works and what doesn't, and anyone who has spent as I have a few decades on this earth cannot but curse, benevolently of course, the many incompetent teachers and coaches and teaching methods they have had to endure in their younger years: those teachers and coaches had no clue. Or they were teaching for the masses, that is, to get their salaries and call it a day or a year. But I think it is more interesting to think about "sacrifices" along the road to greatness" and "suffering." Let's take sports again and think about the incredible suffering (or not) that some people go through to achieve greatness. In many sports, it is not empirically true that the best suffer and sacrifice more than others, and I have provided a few examples for team sports. I could provide 1,000 more, but we get the point. For example, Messi, who is 1,000 times the soccer player I am, or rather was, I can guarantee that he did not train much harder than I did. He was only 1,000 times better than me and 10 times luckier to have a chance to perform: a bad knee injury at age 14 or hormone injections that did not work as planned, and we would not have had a Messi. I recently read a pdf published by current world record holder and 10k speed skating world champion Van der Poel (https://www.howtoskate.se/ https://www.howtoskate.se/). In his writing, he documents his training in the years immediately leading up to the 2022 World Championships. It is an extraordinarily instructive read because we can read from an analytical sports champion about his training, his mindset, his way of looking at things without the unnecessary "cultural" expectations and bravado of others who need to relate to Navy Seals, Kobe Bryant, Jordan, a couple of coaches who have been dead for 50 years, hard-nosed NFL players with CTE, and the "hustle culture." One can start reading from the epilogue. Mind you: his training was about as grueling as it gets, the very definition of physical suffering. He writes, "The hardest thing about this program was being able to complete it with a smile on my face. When I found a way to enjoy it, I was unstoppable [...] To me the challenge was not about suffering, but finding a way to endure hardship with ease [...] Be courageous. Don't overtrain, but stick to the Limit." Grueling work, yes, but with a smile on his face. Is that suffering? Or "just" grueling work? Recommended performance material: "Speed Trap," written by the late Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson's coach and performance mind extraordinaire. Van der Poel's "How to Skate 10k" pdf. All you can find written by Julio Velasco, probably the best volleyball coach ever. "Finding you Zone" by Lardon. "With Winning in Mind" by Bassham. If one reads Tim Grover's book "Relentless", "Winning", they get the impression that high performance is all about suffering, sacrifices, the dark side. It sells well to an audience favorably disposed to this kind of U.S.-centric nonsense, but it is simply, in theory and practice, wildly not true. Given "talent," the road to improvement and performance often goes through more work, but it always goes through better work-more effective, focused, deliberate-than that done by the competition.
codingdave 4y ago
> only be creating devs who are again only going to be dedicated not impressive. There is nothing wrong with that. Taking care of oneself to be good at what you do while maintaining your own health sounds like a terrific goal for its own sake, regardless of where that puts you in comparison to others.
dev_0 4y ago
Difference: Performance feedback of athletes are instant. But not for swe
- lookagain 4y ago
  Luckily, for both athletes and swe, failing is not a matter of life and death. Cheers!
  - dev_0 4y ago
    For extreme sports, failure means death
    - lookagain 4y ago
      Then for those athletes, they might pursue the following books with the same zeal as the OP: The Rise of Superman Art of Impossible

borroka 4y ago

An unfortunate comment. First, GOAT means greatest of all time, which, by definition, means bring beyond impressive. Having a GOAT as a reference for how to conduct one's life sounds nice on Twitter, but in reality it is meaningless for good, great, excellent professionals. Phelps trained 8 hours a day for years, and that has no effect on what I do in my job. But take soccer as an example, where the GOAT could be Pele, Maradona, maybe Messi. All incredibly talented players who didn't work particularly hard, surely not harder than the vast majority of their colleagues. Cruijff was an extraordinary player and then a revolutionary coach who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and went from one woman to another. An attitude not similar to the "mamba" mentality pushed in endless videos and whatnot. One of my favorite authors, Arturo Perez-Reverte, talked about working five hours a day—tremendous consistency, but I bet there are many "amateur" authors who write for more than five hours a day. He seems to lead a pleasant life. And you can find similar examples all over the world. Where I grew up, not in the U.S., there was certainly a focus on dedication, but without the toxic and reckless focus of U.S.-centric Calvinism (now unfortunately quite popular outside the borders of the U.S. as well) on suffering, exhaustion, the "pursuit of greatness," and assorted biblical stories that sound rather ridiculous to those who are not getting high on United States culture day in and day out. "it's undeniable that the road to greatness is filled with incredible suffering." - Nah

lookagain 4y ago
> "it's undeniable that the road to greatness is filled with incredible suffering." - Nah Pardon my inquisitive behavior, but a quick peek at your comment history shows that you have spent some time thinking about pedagogy. If your comments can be taken at face value, would you care to elaborate on the path to progress within a field? Surely, a person can't just wish themselves better.
- borroka 4y ago
  "Surely, a person can't just wish themselves better". One cannot only wish, but wishing is part of it. I have read many biographies of successful people, I have studied the issues of "success" academically, and I have been interested in performance in general for a long time. I have also performed pretty well across physical and mental disciplines. Pedagogy depends on the subject, we know in many fields what works and what doesn't, and anyone who has spent as I have a few decades on this earth cannot but curse, benevolently of course, the many incompetent teachers and coaches and teaching methods they have had to endure in their younger years: those teachers and coaches had no clue. Or they were teaching for the masses, that is, to get their salaries and call it a day or a year. But I think it is more interesting to think about "sacrifices" along the road to greatness" and "suffering." Let's take sports again and think about the incredible suffering (or not) that some people go through to achieve greatness. In many sports, it is not empirically true that the best suffer and sacrifice more than others, and I have provided a few examples for team sports. I could provide 1,000 more, but we get the point. For example, Messi, who is 1,000 times the soccer player I am, or rather was, I can guarantee that he did not train much harder than I did. He was only 1,000 times better than me and 10 times luckier to have a chance to perform: a bad knee injury at age 14 or hormone injections that did not work as planned, and we would not have had a Messi. I recently read a pdf published by current world record holder and 10k speed skating world champion Van der Poel (https://www.howtoskate.se/ https://www.howtoskate.se/). In his writing, he documents his training in the years immediately leading up to the 2022 World Championships. It is an extraordinarily instructive read because we can read from an analytical sports champion about his training, his mindset, his way of looking at things without the unnecessary "cultural" expectations and bravado of others who need to relate to Navy Seals, Kobe Bryant, Jordan, a couple of coaches who have been dead for 50 years, hard-nosed NFL players with CTE, and the "hustle culture." One can start reading from the epilogue. Mind you: his training was about as grueling as it gets, the very definition of physical suffering. He writes, "The hardest thing about this program was being able to complete it with a smile on my face. When I found a way to enjoy it, I was unstoppable [...] To me the challenge was not about suffering, but finding a way to endure hardship with ease [...] Be courageous. Don't overtrain, but stick to the Limit." Grueling work, yes, but with a smile on his face. Is that suffering? Or "just" grueling work? Recommended performance material: "Speed Trap," written by the late Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson's coach and performance mind extraordinaire. Van der Poel's "How to Skate 10k" pdf. All you can find written by Julio Velasco, probably the best volleyball coach ever. "Finding you Zone" by Lardon. "With Winning in Mind" by Bassham. If one reads Tim Grover's book "Relentless", "Winning", they get the impression that high performance is all about suffering, sacrifices, the dark side. It sells well to an audience favorably disposed to this kind of U.S.-centric nonsense, but it is simply, in theory and practice, wildly not true. Given "talent," the road to improvement and performance often goes through more work, but it always goes through better work-more effective, focused, deliberate-than that done by the competition.

codingdave 4y ago

> only be creating devs who are again only going to be dedicated not impressive. There is nothing wrong with that. Taking care of oneself to be good at what you do while maintaining your own health sounds like a terrific goal for its own sake, regardless of where that puts you in comparison to others.

dev_0 4y ago

Difference: Performance feedback of athletes are instant. But not for swe

lookagain 4y ago
Luckily, for both athletes and swe, failing is not a matter of life and death. Cheers!
- dev_0 4y ago
  For extreme sports, failure means death
  - lookagain 4y ago
    Then for those athletes, they might pursue the following books with the same zeal as the OP: The Rise of Superman Art of Impossible