3 ms·

This comes back in comments on HN regularly: 'I use this or that daily and I like it' . Be it windows 10, linux, Android, Rust. If you use something daily for 3

This comes back in comments on HN regularly: 'I use this or that daily and I like it' . Be it windows 10, linux, Android, Rust. If you use something daily for 30 years, there is a LOT you know about it. You forget how much you know about it. Probably you type and read std:unique_ptr<> as fast as you can type an asterisk. All those best practices exist for a reason, and one of the main reasons is that it is such a convoluted language that even compiler makers have trouble understanding the spec (hence multiple targets, linting etc). So kudos to you!

jahnu 4y ago
This is a very fair point that I agree with and in retrospect I wish I had emphasised the limits of what I was trying to get across. But your and other replies have done it for me so I'll leave it as it is.
Kranar 4y ago
No this is not true and it's actually a common misconception. It is not true that doing something for a long time makes you better at it or more knowledgeable about it. There is an excellent meta-analysis [1] that looks at domains such as music, games (such as chess), sports and other domains that shows that people must put in deliberate practice and make an explicit effort to improve, otherwise they simply stagnate and get into a bit of a comfort zone with little to no improvement. When it comes to programming I often say that there is a difference between someone who has ten years of actual programming experience, and someone who has two years of experience that they just repeated five times. I can state from experience that there are plenty of C++ developers who have been using it for decades who don't know basic things about it, and use it like it was still 1995. [1] Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Education, and Professions

3 ms·

This comes back in comments on HN regularly: 'I use this or that daily and I like it' . Be it windows 10, linux, Android, Rust. If you use something daily for 3

by nuancebydefault 4y ago

jahnu 4y ago
This is a very fair point that I agree with and in retrospect I wish I had emphasised the limits of what I was trying to get across. But your and other replies have done it for me so I'll leave it as it is.
Kranar 4y ago
No this is not true and it's actually a common misconception. It is not true that doing something for a long time makes you better at it or more knowledgeable about it. There is an excellent meta-analysis [1] that looks at domains such as music, games (such as chess), sports and other domains that shows that people must put in deliberate practice and make an explicit effort to improve, otherwise they simply stagnate and get into a bit of a comfort zone with little to no improvement. When it comes to programming I often say that there is a difference between someone who has ten years of actual programming experience, and someone who has two years of experience that they just repeated five times. I can state from experience that there are plenty of C++ developers who have been using it for decades who don't know basic things about it, and use it like it was still 1995. [1] Deliberate Practice and Performance in Music, Games, Sports, Education, and Professions