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Comment by sus_007 | Hacker News Reader

> In particular, try to go deep on multiple things...deep on languages, programming...

I fall under the target audience for this piece and by now I've dabbled with at least half a dozen of programming languages and their celebrated frameworks/libraries- from Front to the Back. I tried my best to go deep on all of them just for the sake of learning. But, now I feel lost and can't figure out which path am I supposed to pursue in this vast CS space. Where did I mess up ?

Edit: spelling errors

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I can only speak from personal experience, but I have noticed that I easily get excited to learn a shiny new tool or skill, but once I have basic familiarity with it, my eagerness dries up because all that was driving my desire to learn was the intrigue of an unknown experience. Times where I felt like I actually went deep (and it didn't require superhuman discipline to spend time on something I had lost interest in) were when I was working on a problem I was passionate about that required deep knowledge of a certain set of tools or skills. Then I had reason to keep pushing and along the way I realized I had become halfway decent at that tool/skill set.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. True, it is in fact the desire to learn was the intrigue of an unknown experience sensation that makes me jump from one ship to the other, frequently. I guess I need to work on my discipline and focus on a single tech stack for a considerable period.

Languages are just ...tools, instruments. So desire to learn a language (or framework, whatever tool-kit) for the sake of learning .. isnt going to hold far. BUT.. once u have that half-tool, and the half-transparent-new-window that comes with it, u can use it (and bunch of others) to be able to desire to learn something completely different... AND then use that as a stepping stone for the next.. (repeat..) until u find what u want to do, and all those stones either become the polished fundaments or just mark your steps searching around for the way.

There's saying.. if u fall on your face, dont forget to take something as a souvenir...

have fun

You’re taking the right approach for your age IMO. Breadth is good because it acquaints you with the solution space for any problem you may encounter. Depth is good because it enables you to build solutions. But you don’t need depth until you know you need it. Depth is rarely realized through academic exercise. You develop depth through trial and error while solving real problems with practical use cases. Once you have a problem, and you’ve used your breadth to identify a potential solution, then it is time to dive deep.

My advice to my 20 year old self would be the opposite: Don't go deep on a thing unless you are absolutely convinced that it's going to be lucrative. You might bet your career on the wrong horse and find yourself with no other skills to fall back on.

For maximum flexibility, aim to be a jack of all trades, and learn to fluently translate between tech-speak and business-speak.

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