Hacker News Reader

Comment by throweway | Hacker News Reader

I like the style of writing in this post. Its fresh in the programming world where everyone seems to know it all for someone to admit something is hard or confusing.

View on HN

Yes, the narrative form gives the impression that the author is a very! excited! person! full! of! energy!

But that's kind of refreshing sometimes. It's easy to get cynical about software engineering like I am. And I followed her stream of consciousness a lot better than I follow a lot of recondite technical prose, particularly when it concerns things mired in proprietary abstractions (Java).

And if you had actually met Julia (I am lucky enough to work with her) you would realize that this impression is 100% correct. It is not just an impression, but her whole approach to technology.

While it is good to have more cynical people too (especially for things like software stability), a company that forgets enthusiasm ends up losing its soul.

I think a perfect team would be one Julia, three or four cynical types, and maybe one fresh faced newbie to ask the dumb questions that nevertheless sometimes lead to something innovative.

Heck yea. Im kind of new here and it can be so intimidating. I feel like everyone is an expert at everything.

It's not that, it's just that experts tend to contribute to threads where they can share their expertise.

So while it appears that everyone here is amazing; that isn't the case: we just tend to have something that we're very good at and comment on it.

The good thing is that you can learn a lot here as long as you don't get sidelined by some of the inane arguments and fighting :)

Also, an awful lot of people who sound like infallible "experts" in tech are just people who are dealing poorly with imposter syndrome.

Hang on; Imposter Syndrome would mean that you would come across as a fallible, non-expert, since you believe yourself to really be an imposter. Do you really mean something like the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is sort of the opposite of Imposter Syndrome, people with little knowledge believing themselves to be infallible experts?

Impostor syndrome means that the person thinks of themselves as a fraud, not that other people do. So someone dealing poorly with impostor syndrome might well only chime in when they are exceedingly confident, or only when they do research and can be certain that the information/position they are providing is correct. If you keep your mouth shut except when you're 100% certain, you'll likely look like an "infallible expert" because you're always correct from an external perspective, even if you are quietly filled with self-doubt.

Pretty much. Some people who lack self-confidence seem afraid to ever admit "I don't know" lest it somehow reveal their "fraud" to the world.

A lot of people have discovered that speaking confidently can be a solid substitute for actual expertise.

They're called "consultants"

This is how everybody feels at one point or another. It's called imposter syndrome[0] and it's extremely common!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

Don't be intimidated. I've got 30 years of being in the business of software development, telecoms, networking etc under my belt and every day there's still something new to learn, sometimes too many new things :) Also don't be frightened to ask about things you don't understand, I find the folks around here are generally quite an affable bunch.

The trick is figuring out what you don't know to ask the question in the first place. Often not trivial.

It helps to try to tackle a project that you don't already know how to accomplish. Then the Q&A can work like a reverse dictionary. You know the answer, and work backwards to find the question. Every stumbling block is a question to ask.

Heh. Keep in mind that people are going to be more likely to comment on something which they have knowledge of or an opinion on, so you will see a certain amount of selection bias in that most of the people who comment on something know something about it, even if there are large numbers of people reading and interested who are just keeping quiet (though of course there are people who also make comments on things they know little about).

Also, I know that for some things that I write about, I'm not actually an expert on it beforehand. Instead, I see an interesting question, say to myself "hmm, that's interesting, and I don't actually know the answer", go out to Google, books I own, or just try some experimentation out myself, and then comment on what I found. I usually do try to provide sources and some details about what I did when doing this, but I realize that it may sometimes make me look like more of an expert on topics than I actually am. For example, I have a silver badge in JavaScript on StackOverflow, even though I've only ever written a few dozen lines of JavaSript in my life (in fact, I've probably written more lines of it on StackOverflow than off), since I tend to be good at quickly researching and experimenting with a question and providing a good explanation, not because I'm an expert on JavaScript.

So yeah, it's great the Julia writes down her thought and search process while doing this, as it helps people realize that they too can go through the same process and learn new things.

According to her bio, she works in Stripe's machine learning department so clearly a smart gal and appears to have a great amount of humility - enjoyed her post, was easy to digest and a light read.

All of the posts on this blog are like this, so you should read the archives, for sure. I agree completely.

If you, like, don't mind the, like, valley/bro/speak lingo. AWESOME, right?

I like structured arguments against a status quo - that's what's really required here. This article is one notch earlier in the mental digestion chain; a kind of experiential report, an extended anecdote. It's harder to tell if the problem is the library or the user. It asks the reader to work more, because they need to go on a journey, rather than just parse an argument.

I enjoy reported experience too, but I have less time for them unless they're specific to something I have a strong interest in. Otherwise, give me the executive summary.

Yes, I read less of the internet than I used to.

I've read a lot worse on that score. At least the author didn't parrot a bunch of memes, or throw animated gifs everywhere.

While i admit it was a thrilling take on a concept as abstract as thread-pools, i think the issue lies in the nature in which we programmers talk about computing theory.90% of the time we are either telling (stack-overflow help, or receiving (asking for help on stack overflow) which requires us either to be the teacher or the learner, never in between like this author is.

I have been following her for well over an year now for exactly this reason. She never preaches. It's more like taking her readers along on this journey of discovery. Very very humble and yet insightful

Reply on news.ycombinator.com