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Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums or even in Hacker News? Of course people will talk about things they know (and I come here to see thes

by aylons 13y ago

Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums or even in Hacker News? Of course people will talk about things they know (and I come here to see these), but I can't help but have a feeling that I don't know enough, or that I can't keep with the technology and knowledge. Or worse: that I can't even get a good grasp of established tech, or that I am not smart enough. At deeper levels, this probably relate to the "impostor syndrome"[1], as we compare our whole knowledge to a curated selection of every other person knownledge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

jere 13y ago
Nope. I feel like that every single day. But it's not necessarily a feeling you want to get rid of. If you're not surrounding yourself with daily reminders about what you don't know, what are you learning?
mtrn 13y ago
HN, proggit, /. are filters with more less connected (and great) communities. I often use HN/proggit search to just get a feeling for some tech, how people talk about it - it's very useful for me, more than FB.
MarcScott 13y ago
If I understand 25% of the links on the front page of HN (excluding links to the mainstream press) on any given day then I feel like a success. Each time I come here it feels like a learning journey. That's why I keep coming back.
VLM 13y ago
"I can't help but have a feeling that I don't know enough" Clicked on your profile, and you know Brazil (cool) FPGAs (cool) and EE stuff (cool). We have some common background (well, other than the Brazil thing). Observationally those subjects do not come up very much in the stereotypical HN "yet another coffeescript release" stories, but when those topics do come up, the discussion is interesting. I get a huge rush out of finding something new that I don't know anything about. Exactly like how I felt as a kid opening presents. Addictive.
bluedino 13y ago
>> Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums Sort of. I used to have a forums addiction and have probably 300,000 posts across about 5 forums that I regularly used. In most cases forum threads are just re-hashing the same things over and over. The same arguments. The same recommendations. Jeff Atwood wanted to fix this real bad. Especially when you're talking about something like a vintage Apple computer or 80's Ford Mustangs. Nothing has changed with these things in years so why do we need to make thousands of posts with people asking the same fucking questions as they were in 1995? Tech news sites were another thing. Refreshing AnandTech, HotHardware, ArsTechnica, The Verge, (the list goes on) only to find out that yes, Virginia, the new widget is 20% faster than the old widget! After a while I realized none of it matters. When I buy a new laptop, I'll spend an hour reading the reviews. If I need to recommend some hardware at work, I'll look at it (and not have to look over my shoulder to see if my boss is wondering why I'm reading SSD articles all morning).
dsuth 13y ago
Nope, guess I'm just that smart. ;) But seriously, everyone comes to tech forums with different levels of ability, experience, understanding, and skill in getting these things across. Geeks are especially prone to under-valuing their talents as most of us are introverts, and tend to self-judge quite harshly. The best life lesson I've had on this problem (which I've definitely struggled with) was from a very intelligent guy, who came to work at the same company as me when we were both quite new. I was crossing over from my field to a new field which he was very experienced in, and he was doing the same (crossing over into my old field). We naturally connected, and he was completely unconcerned about asking me questions which a person in his new position should have had down in muscle memory by that stage. He didn't care though - he accepted that he didn't know them, and did his best to learn as quickly as possible. The takeaway: don't tie your self-esteem to your level of knowledge in any particular area. It's definitely the easy path, but it's also a precarious ledge once you're 'there', especially in the tech field. Just accept that your value lies in being able to reason through things, and that you'll always be less knowledgeable about something than someone else (but also conversely, quite likely to be more knowledgeable about something, however esoteric or seemingly useless). In short, have fun and don't sweat it. Most people are in the same boat. :)

by aylons 13y ago

jere 13y ago

Nope. I feel like that every single day. But it's not necessarily a feeling you want to get rid of. If you're not surrounding yourself with daily reminders about what you don't know, what are you learning?

mtrn 13y ago

HN, proggit, /. are filters with more less connected (and great) communities. I often use HN/proggit search to just get a feeling for some tech, how people talk about it - it's very useful for me, more than FB.

MarcScott 13y ago

If I understand 25% of the links on the front page of HN (excluding links to the mainstream press) on any given day then I feel like a success. Each time I come here it feels like a learning journey. That's why I keep coming back.

VLM 13y ago

"I can't help but have a feeling that I don't know enough" Clicked on your profile, and you know Brazil (cool) FPGAs (cool) and EE stuff (cool). We have some common background (well, other than the Brazil thing). Observationally those subjects do not come up very much in the stereotypical HN "yet another coffeescript release" stories, but when those topics do come up, the discussion is interesting. I get a huge rush out of finding something new that I don't know anything about. Exactly like how I felt as a kid opening presents. Addictive.

bluedino 13y ago

>> Am I the only one who feels the same in technical forums Sort of. I used to have a forums addiction and have probably 300,000 posts across about 5 forums that I regularly used. In most cases forum threads are just re-hashing the same things over and over. The same arguments. The same recommendations. Jeff Atwood wanted to fix this real bad. Especially when you're talking about something like a vintage Apple computer or 80's Ford Mustangs. Nothing has changed with these things in years so why do we need to make thousands of posts with people asking the same fucking questions as they were in 1995? Tech news sites were another thing. Refreshing AnandTech, HotHardware, ArsTechnica, The Verge, (the list goes on) only to find out that yes, Virginia, the new widget is 20% faster than the old widget! After a while I realized none of it matters. When I buy a new laptop, I'll spend an hour reading the reviews. If I need to recommend some hardware at work, I'll look at it (and not have to look over my shoulder to see if my boss is wondering why I'm reading SSD articles all morning).

dsuth 13y ago

Nope, guess I'm just that smart. ;) But seriously, everyone comes to tech forums with different levels of ability, experience, understanding, and skill in getting these things across. Geeks are especially prone to under-valuing their talents as most of us are introverts, and tend to self-judge quite harshly. The best life lesson I've had on this problem (which I've definitely struggled with) was from a very intelligent guy, who came to work at the same company as me when we were both quite new. I was crossing over from my field to a new field which he was very experienced in, and he was doing the same (crossing over into my old field). We naturally connected, and he was completely unconcerned about asking me questions which a person in his new position should have had down in muscle memory by that stage. He didn't care though - he accepted that he didn't know them, and did his best to learn as quickly as possible. The takeaway: don't tie your self-esteem to your level of knowledge in any particular area. It's definitely the easy path, but it's also a precarious ledge once you're 'there', especially in the tech field. Just accept that your value lies in being able to reason through things, and that you'll always be less knowledgeable about something than someone else (but also conversely, quite likely to be more knowledgeable about something, however esoteric or seemingly useless). In short, have fun and don't sweat it. Most people are in the same boat. :)