Hacker News Reader

There's a saying: "There's a big difference between ten years of experience, and one year of experience repeated ten times."

Someone who's just repeated solving the same problems over and over again, has the latter, especially if they've only done it in a single language.

View on HN

Not necessarily. You can solve the same problems over and over again, but do better every time. No need to change language. Just improve every time.

You have to be solving for different requirements. If your original solution for a specific problem wasn't perfect (because of the nature of the problem, e.g. optimization), then your previous ability to "solve" the problem doesn't reveal anything about your level of mastery.

Or, to put it differently, progress needs to be measurable.

But then you just become a master of solving those specific problems rather than a master of programming in the larger sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com