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You're posting on HN, so I'll assume you know how to code. Forgive me if I'm wrong. When you're learning a new language or framework, do you instantly do somet

You're posting on HN, so I'll assume you know how to code. Forgive me if I'm wrong. When you're learning a new language or framework, do you instantly do something 'useful and important'? More likely you do something that you could easily accomplish with your old tools, in order to learn the new ones. This is the nature of learning. I teach CS and Science. Writing a script that calculates the first 1000 primes is not 'useful or important', but it is educationally valuable. Getting kids to balance chemical equations is no 'useful or important' but it is an important skill if they want to become chemists. 'useful and important' means different things to different people. I have never needed to speak a word of Latin in my life, so the hours I spent learning the language were pointless. The hours I spent practising solving quadratic equations however, were very useful to me, but not so much for my wife who is an English teacher.

jqm 12y ago
Yes, I know how to program. To answer your question, I learned enough to be able to do a few small things (Agree... schooling it is at this point) it opened my eyes as to what could be done, and I took off doing some projects. Soon enough, I started finding the holes in my knowledge, and started filling them in. I have been at this for years, and expect to be doing it indefinitely. There may be a point education begins, I'm not sure there should be a point at which it ends.... I have had to go back and systematically study some things (as one would in school)... but it means so much more when it is for purpose, and the information is retained. And I'm selective. Time is not an infinite resource. I practice lazy loading. I have long since stopped trying to cram my head full of irrelevant facts or skills that don't make the world any better. If there is a framework or language I think offers some advantages, I learn it if I feel cost vs. benefit is there. Otherwise I take brief measure and make a mental note of existence in case I need it later. I have learned a lot like this and don't generally get lost in the weeds... I believe that this is how _real_ education occurs. Or rather, that this is the method by which knowledge becomes more than theory and a living skill that allows one to produce something. Not knocking classroom education. Some is certainly needed. But I thought this article was spot on.
jordanb 12y ago
I started learning programming when I was in grade school. I first wrote a Pong clone in QBASIC. Thinking I had game development nailed I then set out to build a video game like Doom. That was a failure obviously but I learned a lot. Next I got interested in Linux and started writing a large assortment of tiny little Unix utilities that were of no use to anyone but me. But they were of use to me and I thought they were important. I put one or two on Freshmeat. If I had been stuck in a class and told to write the exact same little Unix utility as 30 other people, that it must do x y and z and must not do anything else, that it would be graded and then discarded it would have crushed my soul. And yeah I did poorly in school in general.

jqm 12y ago

Yes, I know how to program. To answer your question, I learned enough to be able to do a few small things (Agree... schooling it is at this point) it opened my eyes as to what could be done, and I took off doing some projects. Soon enough, I started finding the holes in my knowledge, and started filling them in. I have been at this for years, and expect to be doing it indefinitely. There may be a point education begins, I'm not sure there should be a point at which it ends.... I have had to go back and systematically study some things (as one would in school)... but it means so much more when it is for purpose, and the information is retained. And I'm selective. Time is not an infinite resource. I practice lazy loading. I have long since stopped trying to cram my head full of irrelevant facts or skills that don't make the world any better. If there is a framework or language I think offers some advantages, I learn it if I feel cost vs. benefit is there. Otherwise I take brief measure and make a mental note of existence in case I need it later. I have learned a lot like this and don't generally get lost in the weeds... I believe that this is how _real_ education occurs. Or rather, that this is the method by which knowledge becomes more than theory and a living skill that allows one to produce something. Not knocking classroom education. Some is certainly needed. But I thought this article was spot on.

jordanb 12y ago

I started learning programming when I was in grade school. I first wrote a Pong clone in QBASIC. Thinking I had game development nailed I then set out to build a video game like Doom. That was a failure obviously but I learned a lot. Next I got interested in Linux and started writing a large assortment of tiny little Unix utilities that were of no use to anyone but me. But they were of use to me and I thought they were important. I put one or two on Freshmeat. If I had been stuck in a class and told to write the exact same little Unix utility as 30 other people, that it must do x y and z and must not do anything else, that it would be graded and then discarded it would have crushed my soul. And yeah I did poorly in school in general.