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Sadly 99% of the code that's written nowadays can be directly thrown away. I propose another challenge: Learn the actual meaningful stuff. E.g. how to code in l

Sadly 99% of the code that's written nowadays can be directly thrown away. I propose another challenge: Learn the actual meaningful stuff. E.g. how to code in lisp. Really learn it. You will never code lisp in your job. Promised. But in almost every task you will find that you reuse what you learned. Or learn the architecture of git. How many people write bullshit around git because they don't understand that git can already do 100x of what their shell script or UI tool or plugin can do.... Don't waste your time with what is hip and instead learn how things really work. Real things. Don't learn the latest javascript framework, but learn the difference between class based inheritance and prototypal inheritance. Don't learn the hippest UI IDE, learn vim or emacs. Really learn it, e.g. how to solve almost all problems in vim without any plugins. And one last point about "read all the content your team created". Not sure how big your teams are, but in many companies that's impossible. If you spend 12h of reading 7 days a week you can't read all the content that is created in that week. But you know that the cool_library that replaces the AwesomeLibrary is just as bad at solving the problem and both actually don't even know what the problem is.

User23 7y ago
> You will never code lisp in your job. Promised. I believed this too, but then Clojure happened. It's not my ideal Lisp, but I can get paid to write it at a mainstream company.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  Ditto, Clojure gets work done, and there are hardly any Fortune 100 companies left without someone using it on the job. It's become part of my job.
  - uoaei 7y ago
    What is Clojure's wheelhouse -- what is it used for?
    - chimpburger 7y ago
      Anything that Java is used for
    - jm547ster 7y ago
      All sorts, but I believe it was born out of frustration at unnecessary complexity arising from standard enterprise development. Hickey’s choice of hosting it on the JVM was ingenious, gives access to one of the largest most battle tested ecosystems in modern day enterprise engineering. It’s much more versatile these days with the likes of ClojureScript, it’s being used in anything from real-time multimedia projects to SPA JavaScript work.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      Basically anything other than operating systems. I've been working on an optimizing compiler for spreadsheets, and an event sourcing system with a WebSocket gateway in my current work.
- zerr 7y ago
  According to TIOBE index, Clojure is not a thing outside HN bubble, is it?
- narnianal 7y ago
  Great to read that. I also know one other person who writes Clojure professionally. Gives clojure to some of who hoped for people to get this opportunity at some point. There are also rock stars, but that doesn't mean we should give advise that anyone could become a rock star. Those who will become rock stars will become it anyway even if you tell them they won't.
BeetleB 7y ago
>Don't waste your time with what is hip Wouldn't that apply to git? You can probably get 90-95% of the benefit of git using mercurial with a fraction of the effort in learning. Life is too short to spend learning the internals of one version control system. This idea of "Don't waste time on X focus on more valuable Y" has no real end. Don't waste your non-work time on learning computing related stuff and instead spend time on social connections and physical fitness first. Pays off way more than emacs, git, vim, lisp, or programming paradigms. See how easy it is to make such pronouncements?
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  > You can probably get 90-95% of the benefit of git using mercurial with a fraction of the effort in learning. You absolutely cannot. Even if we pretend that Mercurial is simply outright better than Git, there's a lot of value in learning Git specifically, as it's what most development teams use. Employers value proficiency in Git. If you mention your Mercurial proficiency in an interview, it's likely to be scored up as cute but irrelevant. If you always work alone, sure, Mercurial might work great for you, but the real value of these version-control systems is in enabling teams to work effectively. Most teams these days use Git, so you need to know Git. (Of course, if your team does use Mercurial, you'd better become proficient in Mercurial.) > Life is too short to spend learning the internals of one version control system. I agree that learning the intimate internals of Git's codebase isn't something that's likely to pay off in the day job, but short of that, Git's 'useful skill-ceiling' is pretty high. > Don't waste your non-work time on learning computing related stuff and instead spend time on social connections and physical fitness first. Depends on your working situation. If your work offers no opportunity to learn new skills, and you don't want your CV to get stale, you have little choice.
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    >there's a lot of value in learning Git specifically, as it's what most development teams use. Employers value proficiency in Git. If you mention your Mercurial proficiency in an interview, it's likely to be scored up as cute but irrelevant. Given that the person I was responding to was advocating not spending time on things for the reason that employers are looking for them, and is advocating things almost no workplace uses, I find your comment strange. Perhaps you should be responding to the comment I'm responding to? >Depends on your working situation. If your work offers no opportunity to learn new skills, and you don't want your CV to get stale, you have little choice. You do have a choice, and you made your choice. In the US, in this era, SW professionals are near the top when it comes to freedom to change jobs and change locations. When I know several people who make half of what I do, are relatively unskilled, and have to work much longer hours than I do, who made a very clear choice in favor of physical fitness and social relations, I am not going to claim I don't have a choice. Having said that, this is all orthogonal to my point, which was how easy it is to make (reasonable) lists of things one should focus on that are almost exclusive to one another.
TurboHaskal 7y ago
While I agree in principle, this is a nice way to quickly become unemployed. We live in a hype oriented industry, where momentum and programmer enthusiasm (free man hours or work) and not technical merits predict whether a given technology will thrive or not.
madhadron 7y ago
> Don't learn the hippest UI IDE, learn vim or emacs. This jars. Why not recommend really learning Cocoa and AppleScript or VB for Applications? Or really dig into Smalltalk's code browser? vi and emacs have a long track record, and I still use both because I sank the time in to learn them years ago, but I wouldn't recommend them as fundamentally changing someone's view of computing.
- wowtip 7y ago
  Well, Emacs may not have changed my view of computing, but it definitely changed how I _use_ computers...
jgodbout 7y ago
I code in lisp for work everyday! This is a bad promise, but I agree lisp is amazing. I've recently been learning to love macros and reading let over lambda is fantastic!
strictusername 7y ago
> Don't learn the hippest UI IDE, learn vim or emacs. In some circles, these are equally as 'hip.' Idea: learn the tools you need to get the job done. Study theory to supplement your skills.
hellbanner 7y ago
>learn the meaningful stuff, you will never code in your job implying the code that can be thrown away is the code they get paid for hmmmm

User23 7y ago

> You will never code lisp in your job. Promised. I believed this too, but then Clojure happened. It's not my ideal Lisp, but I can get paid to write it at a mainstream company.

microcolonel 7y ago
Ditto, Clojure gets work done, and there are hardly any Fortune 100 companies left without someone using it on the job. It's become part of my job.
- uoaei 7y ago
  What is Clojure's wheelhouse -- what is it used for?
  - chimpburger 7y ago
    Anything that Java is used for
  - jm547ster 7y ago
    All sorts, but I believe it was born out of frustration at unnecessary complexity arising from standard enterprise development. Hickey’s choice of hosting it on the JVM was ingenious, gives access to one of the largest most battle tested ecosystems in modern day enterprise engineering. It’s much more versatile these days with the likes of ClojureScript, it’s being used in anything from real-time multimedia projects to SPA JavaScript work.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    Basically anything other than operating systems. I've been working on an optimizing compiler for spreadsheets, and an event sourcing system with a WebSocket gateway in my current work.
zerr 7y ago
According to TIOBE index, Clojure is not a thing outside HN bubble, is it?
narnianal 7y ago
Great to read that. I also know one other person who writes Clojure professionally. Gives clojure to some of who hoped for people to get this opportunity at some point. There are also rock stars, but that doesn't mean we should give advise that anyone could become a rock star. Those who will become rock stars will become it anyway even if you tell them they won't.

BeetleB 7y ago

>Don't waste your time with what is hip Wouldn't that apply to git? You can probably get 90-95% of the benefit of git using mercurial with a fraction of the effort in learning. Life is too short to spend learning the internals of one version control system. This idea of "Don't waste time on X focus on more valuable Y" has no real end. Don't waste your non-work time on learning computing related stuff and instead spend time on social connections and physical fitness first. Pays off way more than emacs, git, vim, lisp, or programming paradigms. See how easy it is to make such pronouncements?

MaxBarraclough 7y ago
> You can probably get 90-95% of the benefit of git using mercurial with a fraction of the effort in learning. You absolutely cannot. Even if we pretend that Mercurial is simply outright better than Git, there's a lot of value in learning Git specifically, as it's what most development teams use. Employers value proficiency in Git. If you mention your Mercurial proficiency in an interview, it's likely to be scored up as cute but irrelevant. If you always work alone, sure, Mercurial might work great for you, but the real value of these version-control systems is in enabling teams to work effectively. Most teams these days use Git, so you need to know Git. (Of course, if your team does use Mercurial, you'd better become proficient in Mercurial.) > Life is too short to spend learning the internals of one version control system. I agree that learning the intimate internals of Git's codebase isn't something that's likely to pay off in the day job, but short of that, Git's 'useful skill-ceiling' is pretty high. > Don't waste your non-work time on learning computing related stuff and instead spend time on social connections and physical fitness first. Depends on your working situation. If your work offers no opportunity to learn new skills, and you don't want your CV to get stale, you have little choice.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  >there's a lot of value in learning Git specifically, as it's what most development teams use. Employers value proficiency in Git. If you mention your Mercurial proficiency in an interview, it's likely to be scored up as cute but irrelevant. Given that the person I was responding to was advocating not spending time on things for the reason that employers are looking for them, and is advocating things almost no workplace uses, I find your comment strange. Perhaps you should be responding to the comment I'm responding to? >Depends on your working situation. If your work offers no opportunity to learn new skills, and you don't want your CV to get stale, you have little choice. You do have a choice, and you made your choice. In the US, in this era, SW professionals are near the top when it comes to freedom to change jobs and change locations. When I know several people who make half of what I do, are relatively unskilled, and have to work much longer hours than I do, who made a very clear choice in favor of physical fitness and social relations, I am not going to claim I don't have a choice. Having said that, this is all orthogonal to my point, which was how easy it is to make (reasonable) lists of things one should focus on that are almost exclusive to one another.

TurboHaskal 7y ago

While I agree in principle, this is a nice way to quickly become unemployed. We live in a hype oriented industry, where momentum and programmer enthusiasm (free man hours or work) and not technical merits predict whether a given technology will thrive or not.

madhadron 7y ago

> Don't learn the hippest UI IDE, learn vim or emacs. This jars. Why not recommend really learning Cocoa and AppleScript or VB for Applications? Or really dig into Smalltalk's code browser? vi and emacs have a long track record, and I still use both because I sank the time in to learn them years ago, but I wouldn't recommend them as fundamentally changing someone's view of computing.

wowtip 7y ago
Well, Emacs may not have changed my view of computing, but it definitely changed how I _use_ computers...

jgodbout 7y ago

I code in lisp for work everyday! This is a bad promise, but I agree lisp is amazing. I've recently been learning to love macros and reading let over lambda is fantastic!

strictusername 7y ago

> Don't learn the hippest UI IDE, learn vim or emacs. In some circles, these are equally as 'hip.' Idea: learn the tools you need to get the job done. Study theory to supplement your skills.

hellbanner 7y ago

>learn the meaningful stuff, you will never code in your job implying the code that can be thrown away is the code they get paid for hmmmm