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Comment by bradhe | Hacker News Reader

What I hated about contracting was not working with other people. I wasn't afforded opportunities to learnbfrom senior people like some of my peers were. When I did decide to get a "9-5" I was a bit behind everyone else,

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With stack overflow, blogs, irc, message boards, etc I think the idea of a live expert is face to face is overrated. Rather than going to the guru and eating his words as gospel, I can go on the internet and get 10 different opinions on a problem I am having. Then I can critically evaluate those different viewpoints and pick the one that is right for the way I work.

Finding the best way of solving problem X isn't what you learn by being under/around good senior developers, what you learn is a set of mental tools and approaches for solving problems & your ethos as a developer. You can't learn that stuff on Stack Overflow.

Anything that can be learned via talking to people can be learned via Stack Overflow assuming you can communicate well using text (although it may get tagged with the feared Subjective tag).

Why is this comment not welcome here? I would like not to repeat my mistake in the future but I'm not sure what I did wrong.

Technical skills are only one small part of the skill set of a modern technical worker. You can learn a hell of a lot about people-management from the right mentor, and that's going to make a whole lot more difference to your career than learning to solve technical problems.

There are some nuances I'm sure you've missed. Likewise, the opportunity to bounce things off othervpeople with a vested interest is invaluable.

Not really. If I need a face to with the people who have a vested interest, it has never been prevented by the fact that I am a contractor.

If I need someone to bounce ideas off of, I just go to lunch with one of my developer friends.

Being a contractor only makes you isolated if you let it.

For concrete problem solving, sure. Esp. If the problems are small or common enough. But there's more that you get out of working closely together with someone who can teach you something.

You can't seriously believe that using StackOverflow is comparable to working alongside an expert.

In my experience listening to the company's 'experts' is often a great way to learn outdated skills.

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