Ask HN: Are there any things you learned but wish you hadn't? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are there any things you learned but wish you hadn't?

7 pointsvinchuco2 comments

I've found countless pieces of advice in HN of the following nature:

>things you wish you had learned earlier in your careers? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10026146

>what do you wish you knew 4 years into programming? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14366070

>things you wish you knew when you started programming? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10026146

>...etc

But I couldn't find a single instance of the opposite, namely:

Are there any things you learned but wish you hadn't?

For instance, are there things you wish you hadn't spend as much time and effort on. Or things that you would have been better off not knowing because of the way they shaped your mental frameworks or outcomes. Or tools that limited your abilities. Think anti-patterns. Have you had such instances of 'bad knowledge'?

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Any legit answer to this question would be contextual therefore not really practical for anyone.

For example, I may say "I wish I hadn't learned to play video games", but who knows I will go on to build a video game empire because I was so inspired by it? Or, I would turn into a video game junkie and live in my mom's basement till I die. The only difference in the two completely opposite outcome is how I dealt with the reality, and has nothing to do with the skill I learned.

The only correct answer to "I wish I hadn't learned" is about timing. A lot of innovation in the world is achieved by people who's relatively a newcomer in the field because they have a fresh perspective. All the "experts" think the same way so they can't really come up with a true innovation.

But even in this case it's more about timing and context, and there's no absolute answer to it.

If someone thinks "I wish I hadn't learned X" NOT in the context of timing, I think it just means the person needs to see the world in more positive light and realize that they can change themselves at will and do whatever they want. A skill doesn't ruin you. You ruin yourself.

I feel like I've wasted a lot of time trying to use Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I've used it only for side projects, and I always ended up spending so much time on setup, getting everything to compile, debugging random things, etc, that I never really felt the productivity gains were worth it.

Once it is up and running, Ruby on Rails is great, but I dread the day I have to update or migrate one of my Rails projects...

People who use Rails every day seem to really love it (and they know what to do when stuff fails). Everything seems so effortless when you watch an experienced Rails dev.

I wish I'd known ahead of time just how much of an investement Rails requires to reap the benefits, and that I shouldn't bother trying to use it for small side projects.

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