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I'm surprised that you feel you were able to measure something accurately with that list. I feel like it's very vague, and I don't have a clue how good I actua

I'm surprised that you feel you were able to measure something accurately with that list. I feel like it's very vague, and I don't have a clue how good I actually am for many of the important things like "problem decomposition", "systems decomposition", "communication", "code readability", et al. I'm sure there are probably people who would consider themselves "level 3" that I would scoff at, and there are probably people who would consider themselves "level 3" who would scoff at me. Basically, "level 3" seems to span everything from Norvig and djb to someone who got a BS and just read Code Complete. Anyway, it looks like you're good enough at stuff to be a good generalist, so you should probably just study and work on whatever you're interested in and improve naturally.

mattmanser 15y ago
To be fair you just picked out the things on the list that are hard to measure and partially comes down to personal preference/style. For example I absolutely detest the code behind DotNetOpenAuth but I can't really tell you why and I'm sure others would say it's fine. It's not a bad measure of where you are as long as you're honest with yourself.
- mquander 15y ago
  I did, but I think those also intersect with the most important things in everyday work -- soft skills, founded on judgement and aesthetic sensibilities, which are hard to measure, but which make the difference between an OK solution and a really great solution. It's very hard for me to perceive how large the range of ability is in those skills, or where any single person is in it. (And many of the other, more concretely specified skills still suffer from the lots-of-room-at-the-top syndrome, e.g. I don't think that "has written custom macros" makes me an Emacs wizard, but whatever.)
watmough 15y ago
"Basically, "level 3" seems to span everything from Norvig and djb to someone who got a BS and just read Code Complete." I was going to post that reading Code Complete is one way perhaps to help OP recognize when you are improving, but there's more to it, you need to read, lots. A programming career can be a long one, and many people may never stray far from their home town, whilst others might wash up, bedraggled, all across the globe. There have been lots of articles on HN recently about self-development, but common threads seem to be: - directed practice - reflection - publish and be criticized by others (good way) Between reading the great books, writing real code and exposing your code to others' criticism, there should be a path that leads to serious improvement at a steady pace. I've interviewed recently, and it's caused me to look carefully at what I do, and how much I know. That in itself has been valuable, and helped me pick out what to read (C and C++ books in my case), and given me a target to become more surefooted in my programming.

mattmanser 15y ago

To be fair you just picked out the things on the list that are hard to measure and partially comes down to personal preference/style. For example I absolutely detest the code behind DotNetOpenAuth but I can't really tell you why and I'm sure others would say it's fine. It's not a bad measure of where you are as long as you're honest with yourself.

mquander 15y ago
I did, but I think those also intersect with the most important things in everyday work -- soft skills, founded on judgement and aesthetic sensibilities, which are hard to measure, but which make the difference between an OK solution and a really great solution. It's very hard for me to perceive how large the range of ability is in those skills, or where any single person is in it. (And many of the other, more concretely specified skills still suffer from the lots-of-room-at-the-top syndrome, e.g. I don't think that "has written custom macros" makes me an Emacs wizard, but whatever.)

watmough 15y ago

"Basically, "level 3" seems to span everything from Norvig and djb to someone who got a BS and just read Code Complete." I was going to post that reading Code Complete is one way perhaps to help OP recognize when you are improving, but there's more to it, you need to read, lots. A programming career can be a long one, and many people may never stray far from their home town, whilst others might wash up, bedraggled, all across the globe. There have been lots of articles on HN recently about self-development, but common threads seem to be: - directed practice - reflection - publish and be criticized by others (good way) Between reading the great books, writing real code and exposing your code to others' criticism, there should be a path that leads to serious improvement at a steady pace. I've interviewed recently, and it's caused me to look carefully at what I do, and how much I know. That in itself has been valuable, and helped me pick out what to read (C and C++ books in my case), and given me a target to become more surefooted in my programming.