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Comment by peatmoss

8 years ago

I love this idea in part because it's the very opposite of the way I tend to work, which is to drive very hard to get a surface understanding of a thing in order to make a very targeted change. I learn lots along the way with this approach, but don't often get the deep, wholistic understanding of existing systems that only comes with repeated exposure over a long time.

Some kinds of understanding involve a no shortcuts grind. That sort of a grind is a big commitment though.

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peatmoss

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erikb  8 years ago

Your process is very good at achieving results fast. But the problem is you always stay in the same "level" of achieving results, which of course in the beginning is a very low level.

What do I mean with "level"? Let's look at transportation in that regards. At first we just had walking/running. Then we learned how to use horses. Then we developed the wheel and could use horse wagons. Then we discovered the walking bike, etc.

If you are on a low level you may be the fastest on that level, but you may be dimensions slower than people on higher levels. Think horse riding vs car.

But that is not the biggest problem if you only use the approach. On a higher level you'll also be able to solve problems that you didn't even know where solvable. For instance if everybody walks you won't even consider visiting other continents. But if you have airplanes you can get there in a few hours and it becomes something people do at least twice a year.

In programming this "solving problems easily that you didn't even know that there were solvable" happens if you really learn software architecture from actual tools, apis, how standards work, etc. The biggest wow for me was when I started to put in the additional 20-50% overhead to becoming standard conform for a standardized API. In the end when I had a problem I didn't have to code anything, because the other tools were already working with the same API as my tool, and I could just connect them and be done. This way I solved 75% of a semester long software project in one weekend, and I wouldn't consider myself especially intelligent. I just put in the hours to become standard conform, because from learning open source tools I found out it's something that people really do and that it is possible to do that.

azhenley  8 years ago

What you're hinting at is Minimalist Learning Theory.

You have a production bias to learn only what you need to immediately get your job done, rather than investing time to learn up front which could potentially be more efficient in the long run.

RUG3Y  8 years ago

I have the same problem, and I'm striving to overcome it. I'm excellent at gaining surface level knowledge quickly, deep knowledge requires much more discipline - and I struggle with how to do it, as I don't have a good strategy for that kind of learning.