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Comment by stockkid | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to measure how much I was really learning while programming. So I wrote down notes every time I learned something for an entire month in January.

The result revealed that we do not actually learn much and that we have misconception about 'learning.'

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I don't know that it is fair to extrapolate conclusions about "we" from the single data point of just yourself.

Learning is also about the big picture. Counting the number of factoids that you pick up about specific languages isn't the same thing as gaining a broader understanding of software development, or of a particular framework or even a specific codebase.

I can't read the article(blocked at work here), so at face value I agree with you. But then the question is, how do you go about measuring the latter?

I'd ask a different question, of why do you need to measure it in the first place? I learn more about our codebase, my productivity goes up -- I deliver more updates, with less bugs, faster as I learn. Do I need to measure the details of how much I learned? Or is it sufficient to just know that I'm grokking more each day, and that is reflected in my work?

Isn't that the mantra of BI? Be careful what you measure, because that is what you will improve.

> Isn't that the mantra of BI? Be careful what you measure, because that is what you will improve.

The corollary is that you don't improve what you don't measure.

> Or is it sufficient to just know that I'm grokking more each day, and that is reflected in my work?

OP's point is, I believe, that you don't know that you're really grokking much of anything and how much it's actually reflected in your work, because you're not measuring it. This can work if you have good feedback mechanism at work, though.

> The corollary is that you don't improve what you don't measure.

I mean, this is a nice saying, but it is pretty clearly not true. Lots of things that aren't measured are improved; we have not measured my two year olds vocabulary at all, but it is certainly improving.

Indeed. The correct corralary is "Things that don't improve aren't being measured"

E.g. negating A => B yields !B => !A

So measuring learning is a good thing, because it means you will likely be more deliberate in actually getting better at it, as opposed to just leaving it up to chance

FWIW, I have found that I am learning more that I realize. This has been brought to my attention when I go over what I have been working on with someone who is in a comparable state as I was when I started (a new team member, for example), and I find myself having to explain more than I would have guessed was needing to be explained.

I spend a lot of time thinking on this - how to become a better programmer, and how to learn more effectively. I find myself vacillating between googling "how do I get the drop-down to stop showing up behind the button" and reading "Javascript: The Definitive Guide" cover to cover. In the long run, I believe that I get more out of real deep-dives into the core of the subject matter, but I worry that I don't have much specific to show for it.

I suppose that makes a case for having a portfolio of projects and "how I made this" type blog posts, because it can serve as a proxy for the kind of things you have learned and done, as well as the kind of challenges you had to overcome to accomplish

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