7 ms·
Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it. An average unaware person believes
by hamstergene 4mo ago
Because the most important parts of the expertise are coming from their internal "world model" and are inseparable from it.
An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. The request to take a dev and "communicate" their expertise to another is based on this belief. And because this belief is wrong, the attempt to communicate expertise never fully succeeds.
Factual knowledge can be transferred via words well, that's why there is always at least partial success at communicating expertise. But solidified interconnected world model of what all your knowledge adds up to, cannot. AI can blow you out of the water at knowing more facts, but it doesn't yet utilize it in a way that allows surprisingly often having surprisingly correct insights into what more knowledge probably is. That mysterious ability to be right more often is coming out of "world model", that is what "expertise" is. That part cannot be communicated, one can only help others acquire the same expertise.
Communicating expertise is a hint where to go and what to learn, the reader still needs to put effort to internalize it and they need to have the right project that provides the opportunity to learn what needs to be learnt. It is not an act of transfer.
- zsoltkacsandi 4mo agoThat’s very well put.
- whattheheckheck 4mo agoWell here's an engineering problem figure out how to mentor 10x the number of juniors
- necovek 4mo agoMentor 3 who need to mentor/"pair with" 3 each? ;-)
- the_snooze 4mo agoYou don't. You accept that social bandwidth is a real-world constraint that you work with, not magic away. That's real engineering.
- gfody 4mo agothis is why I only communicate in poetry complexity is not what you believe it is please try listening
- randysalami 4mo agoSo cool. One reading is “complexity is not what you believe it is”. Another is “complexity is”… “not what you believe it is”. Seems similar but the difference is subtle. Even the “please try listening” line changes in both versions. One is confrontational, the other is empathetic.
- entropicdrifter 4mo agoAgreed. "complexity is" as a full sentence followed by "not what you believe it is" has a fundamentally different meaning. Very cool
- SoftTalker 4mo agoReminded me of a colleague who wrote his email replys as haiku. It got old pretty quickly.
- dragontamer 4mo agoLike an old colleague Who wrote emails in haiku It got old quickly .... Sorry, I couldn't resist!!
- kstenerud 4mo agoThere is complexity that can only be moved around, not eliminated.
- minikomi 4mo agoSometimes it's better To keep it all in a clump Than spread it about
- makbar890 4mo ago[dead]
- CreepGin 4mo ago[dead]
- senderista 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge
- forlorn_mammoth 4mo agogood things llms solve this problem by assuming everything can be put into words and then convincing the world this is true.
- reverius42 4mo agoYou might be encouraged by this then -- it seems some leading AI researchers agree with you: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/22/1131661/yann-lecuns-new-venture-ami-labs/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/22/1131661/yann-lec...
- tsunamifury 4mo agoThat is 100% NOT what he is doing. My guy LeCun believes in deterministic systems describing reality even more than LLMs. He is literally a symbolic logic die hard.
- spondyl 4mo ago> An average unaware person believes that anything can be put in words and once the words are said, they mean to reader what the sayer meant, and the only difficulty could come from not knowing the words or mistaking ambiguities. "Transmissionism" is a term I've seen to describe this https://andymatuschak.org/books/ https://andymatuschak.org/books/
- dogcomplex 4mo agoCorrect. One just has to realize that the cost of communication (and the context/memory lost along the way to train that understanding) is often just far higher than anyone has patience for. To fully understand the expert, they must become the expert. (or at least a hell of a lot closer than they were) This is also why average people with little time to commit find it hard to realize the importance and depth of AI. It's a full on university education exploring those.
- gooseyard 4mo agoBy complete coincidence, yesterday I came across this link to an article Peter Naur wrote in 1985 (https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf) which I haven't been able to stop thinking about. I've been doing this for coming up on thirty years now, mostly at one large company, and I spent a significant number of hours every week fielding questions from people who are newer at it who are having trouble with one thing or another. Often I can tell immediately from the question that the root of the problem is that their world model (Naur would call it their Theory) is incomplete or distorted in some way that makes it difficult for them to reason about fixing the problem. Often they will complain that documentation is inadequate or missing, or that we don't do it the way everyone else does, or whatever, and there's almost always some truth to that. The challenge then is to find a way to represent your own theory of whatever the thing is into some kind of symbolic representation, usually some combination of text and diagrams which, shown to a person of reasonable experience and intelligence, would conjure up a mental model in the reader which is similar to your own. In other words you want to install your theory into the mind of another person. A theory of the type Naur describes can't be transplanted directly, but I think my job as a senior developer is to draw upon my experience, whether it was in the lecture hall or on the job, to figure out a way of reproducing those theories. That's one of the reasons why communication skills are so critical, but its not just that; a person also needs to experience this process of receiving a theory of operation from another person many times over to develop instincts about how to do it effectively. Then we have to refine those intuitions into repeatable processes, whether its writing documents, holding classes, etc. This has become the most rewarding part of my work, and a large part of why I'm not eager to retire yet as long as I feel I'm performing this function in a meaningful way. I still have a great deal to learn about it, but I think that Naur's conception of what is actually going on here makes it a lot more clear the role that senior engineers can play in the long term function of software companies if its something they enjoy doing.
- hathawsh 4mo agoIsn't that interesting? The job of exploring a theory or model to such an extent that it can be expressed in computer code always seems to fall on the shoulders of a software developer. Other people can write specifications and requirements all day long, but until a software developer has tackled the problem, the theory probably hasn't been explored well enough yet to express clearly in computer code. It feels like software developers are scientists who study their customers' knowledge domains.
- coip 4mo ago“Cursive knowledge”, as an old boss told me. Was incredibly ironic when he leaned into my misunderstanding.
- mschulkind 4mo agoThis is surprisingly close to a personal theory I've been working on. I've been describing how to use AI to people as engaging the world model in their head, organization, or software. I'd love to talk more live. I think I have some ideas you'd be interested in. Find me in my profile.
- jongjong 4mo agoGreat points. Words allow one to communicate an approximation of part of what one knows. Agree about expertise being inseparable from the 'world model'. When someone tells us something, they're assuming that we know a certain amount of background knowledge but, in reality, we never have exactly the missing pieces that the speaker is assuming we have because our world model is different. It can lead to distortions and misunderstandings. Even if someone repeats back to us variants of what we've told them at a later time, it doesn't mean that they've internalized the exact same knowledge. The interpretation can be different in subtle and surprising ways. You only figure out discrepancies once you have a thorough debate. But unfortunately, a lot of our society is built around avoiding confrontation, there is a lot of self-censorship, so actually people tend to maintain very different world models even though the surface-level ideas which they communicate appear to be similar. Individuals in modern society have almost complete consensus over certain ideas which we communicate and highly divergent views concerning just about everything else which we don't talk about... And as our views diverge more, it narrows down the set of topics which can be discussed openly.
- LooseMarmoset 4mo agoI think that this is actually a good thing. If everyone had the same internal world model, we would have very little innovation. I try to train and mentor those that are junior to me. I try to show them what is possible, and patterns that result in failure. This training is often piecemeal and incomplete. As much as I can, I communicate why I do the things I do, but there are very few things I tell them not to do. I am often surprised at the way people I have trained solve problems, and frequently I learn things myself. Training is less successful for those who aren’t interested in their own contributions, and who view the job only as a means to get paid. I am not saying those people are wrong to think that way, but building a world view of work based on disinterest isn’t going to let people internalize training.
- bruce511 4mo agoI agree. It's pretty easy to train based on facts, and even experiences. And learners can often take things in unexpected directions. I think it becomes difficult to train the next layer up though, which is a sum-total of life experience. And I think this is what the parent poster was referring to. For example, I read a lot of Agatha Christie growing up. At school I participated in problem-solving groups, focusing on ways to "think" about problems. And I read Mark Clifton's "Eight keys to Eden". All of that means I approach bug-fixing in a specific mental way. I approach it less as "where is the bug" and more like "how would I get this effect if I was wanting to do it". It's part detective novel, part change in perspective, part logical progression. So yes, training is good, and I agree that needs to be one. But I can not really teach "the way I think". That's the product of a misspent youth, life experience, and ingrained mental patterns.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4mo agoJust wanted to say thanks for this. Great thread.
- danieltanfh95 4mo agoyep, as I was exploring in https://danieltan.weblog.lol/2026/05/dunning-kruger-and-the-communication-tax https://danieltan.weblog.lol/2026/05/dunning-kruger-and-the-... , the expert pays the "communication tax" to dumb down concepts that the listener can understand. There is a gap between domain understanding and what is being conveyed that is similar for human-llm interactions as well.
- hibikir 4mo agoA non-trivial part of the big difference between the juniors that seem talented and "get it", and those that don't is precisely their ability to form accurate enough world models quickly. You can tell who is going at the "physics" of software and applying them, and who is just writing down recipes, and doesn't try to understand the nature of any of the steps. It's especially noticeable when teaching functional programming to people trained in OO: Some people's model just breaks, while others quickly see the similarities, and how one can translate from a world of vars to a world of monads with relative ease. The bones of how computation works aren't changing, just how one puts together the pieces.
- jmbwell 4mo agoIndeed. Understand the principles, you can work with just about any tool
- d_sem 4mo agoThis resonates. Tips on how to build this skill?
- korijn 4mo agoPut yourself in a position where it is your problem/responsibility, where you cannot depend on another to do it for you. You'll be learning every day.
- dalmo3 4mo agoIf your hair is on fire, you don't ask how hot.
- lionkor 4mo agoNo who you replied to, but practice. Deliberate practice; not just writing the same apps over and over, but instead challenging yourself with new projects. Build things from scratch, from documentation or standards alone. Force yourself to understand all the little details for one specific problem.
- 4mo ago
- themafia 4mo ago> AI can blow you out of the water at knowing more facts Yea, but, I have a search engine that contains all the original uncompressed training data, so I'm back on top. How we collectively forgot this is amazing to me. > and they need to have the right project that provides the opportunity to learn what needs to be learnt. It takes _time_. I solve problems the way I do because I've had my fair share of 2am emergency calls, unexpected cost blowups, and rewrite failures in my career. The weariness is in my bones at this point.
- k__ 4mo agoI'd say, on averaged, it's 50% what you say and 50% communication issues. Most smart juniors have no problem with learning. Perceptual exposure and deliberate practice works almost mechanically. However, if someone can't tell you what examples you should be exposed to, you'll learn crap.
- cpursley 4mo agoThis sounds like a whole lot of copium from devs who don't want to bother with the effort of just writing stuff down, ie good documentation practices... Actually, maybe even worse (not directed at parent) - I think some "seniors" have a stick so far up their err keyboard, and think they are so wise beyond words that they refuse to share their "all knowing expertise" with anyone else as a form of gatekeeping or perhaps fear of being "found out" (that they are not actually keyboard "Gods"). Really though, just wright shit down even if the first draft isn't great. Write it down, check it into the codebase.
- necovek 4mo agoI believe you are responding to a concern you are facing in your career with bad documentation (I would guess bad code too), but projecting that onto an unrelated topic: I believe both could be independently true or not.
- cpursley 4mo ago*write stuff. Siri dictation can’t be overhauled soon enough.
- frgturpwd 4mo agoYeah, you can't get it out in "one session of conversation", but you definitely can under a different... context. "Seeing the work reveals what matters. Even if the master were a good teacher, apprenticeship in the context of on-going work is the most effective way to learn. People are not aware of everything they do. Each step of doing a task reminds them of the next step; each action taken reminds them of the last time they had to take such an action and what happened then. Some actions are the result of years of experience and have subtle reasons; other actions are habit and no longer have a good justification. Nobody can talk better about what they do and why they do it than they can while in the middle of doing it."
- crabbone 4mo agoAnother part of the equation is practice. Long before the discussion of the morality of AI went mainstream, I ran into a problem with making what appeared to be ethical choices in automation, and then went on a journey of trying to figure this all ethics thing out (took courses in university, read some books...) I made an unexpected discovery reading Jonathan Haid's... either Righteous Mind or the Happiness Hypothesis. He claimed that practicing ethics, as is common in religious societies is an integral and important part of being a good person. This is while secular societies often disregard this aspect and imagine ethics to be something you learn exclusively by reading books or engaging in similar activity that has exclusively the descriptive side, but no practice whatsoever. I believe this is the same with expertise. Part of it is gained through practice, and that is an unskippable part. Practice will also usually require more time than the meta-discussion of the subject. To oversimplify it, a novice programmer who listened to every story told by a senior, memorized and internalized them, but sill can't touch-type will be worse at everyday tasks pertaining to their occupation. It's not enough to know touch-typing exists, one must practice it and become good at it in order to benefit from it. There are, of course, more, but less obvious skills that need practice, where meta-knowledge simply can't be used as a substitute. There are cues we learn to pick up by reading product documentation which will tell us if the product will work as advertised, whether the product manufacturer will be honest or fair with us, will the company making the product go out of business soon or will they try to bait-and-switch etc. When children learn to do addition, it's not enough to describe to them the method (start counting with first summand, count the number of times of the second summand, the last count is the result), they actually must go through dozens of examples before they can reliably put the method to use. And this same property carries over to a lot of other activities, even though we like to think about ourselves as being able to perform a task as soon as we understand the mechanism.
- accidentallfact 4mo agoI'm going to get downvoted to hell for this, but you described the exact reason why education is a waste of time.
- necovek 4mo agoI'll bite: is education not about starting with theoretical summary of the knowledge in the domain, and then applying it in practice and really feeling it work, be challenging, or not work? The best educators I had had exactly that approach: you sometimes start with theory, but other times with challenges which make you feel the difficulty, and understand the value of the theory you are co-developing with the educator (they just have the benefit of knowing exactly where we'll end up, but when time allows, they do let you take a wrong turn too). Even if you start with theory, diving into a challenge where you are allowed not to apply the learnings should quickly tell you why the theoretical side makes sense. As with everything in life, great educators are few but once you have them, you can apply the same approach yourself even if the educator is unable to steer you the right way. If you never received this type of education, then what you received could arguably be called a waste of time.
- sfn42 4mo agoSome people manage to go through the whole education system without learning much, others go through exactly the same program and learn a ton, way more than required. Guess which of those people say education is a waste of time. Basic Education is about bringing the average up, make sure everyone can read and do basic math etc. Beyond that it's the same thing just at a higher level. Most people who graduate with a bachelors of computer science or similar won't be great programmers. That's why we call them great, they're better than the rest. Most people don't have greatness in them. No amount of education can change that. Those who do have what it takes will naturally succeed because that's who they are. They will study and do the required material and when they're done with that they will spend their free time learning even more because they want it. Some will do so even without a formal education but I don't think that's the case for most. If you manage to go through 3-5+ years where your only job is to learn stuff, without learning stuff, then you have no one to blame but yourself. And if you can do it without going to university, go ahead. I'm pretty sure the failure rate for that path is a lot higher but it's certainly an option.
- toshikatsu-oga 4mo ago[dead]
- teddyh 4mo agoThe tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name. — Tao Te Ching, chapter 1 <https://ttc.tasuki.org/ https://ttc.tasuki.org/>
- hliyan 4mo agoThe way I usually frame this is: if all expertise could be eventually distilled into verbal form, then years of experience will cease to matter as it all could be replaced with a series of textbooks. Which we obviously know is not possible.
- hurril 4mo agoI don't think I can agree with you here because a lot of these things that people know but that is supposedly hard to dress in words, is very often just positions that someone holds arbitrarily, so is difficult to impossible to explain. The positions do not have explanations because they are not held for good reason. I say this as someone with 3 decades of professional experience. That does not make me right, please do tell me that I am in fact wrong! It does mean that I might be one of these guys with positions that should be challenged, however. You know what? I welcome this. Explain to me why I am wrong, let's do it your way, dear youngin!