3 HN users recommended this talk3 months2017score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters recommend it when asked how to learn better or keep improving.
Kathy Sierra's Fluent 2015 keynote on the one metaskill for developers: the ability to come up to speed quickly and stay there. She covers how people learn, cognitive resources versus willpower, and building skill.
“Kathy Sierra gave an informative talk on the topic of learning at the 2015 O'Reilly Fluent conference.” (HN, 2017)
Kathy Sierra gave an informative talk on the topic of learning at the 2015 O'Reilly Fluent conference. It's entitled "Making Badass Developers". [this video]
I'm skeptical about willpower, too.. but what about "cognitive resources"? I bookmarked this because while I don't know if it's the whole and full truth (how could it be?), it certainly seems interesting, the whole talk is but here's the start of the relevant bit: [this video]
Talk segment on cognitive resources versus willpower
1. You need to recognize when you're not learning, for one thing. If it's easy, you're not learning. You need to push yourself into the zone of discomfort, where you feel clumsy and have a hard time. Now you're learning. 2. Find a mentor. Lacking that, find e.g. talk of someone explaining some hard techniques and then try to follow the advice. Even and especially if it feels clumsy at first. (More on those two here: [link] ). 3. Switch to a new job where you'll be exposed to new things. try to find a job where people do code review, feedback is how we learn faster. 4. Learn how to learn: [this video] 5. Reflect on your mistakes, try to find what cues you missed and what you should look for next time. I've been doing this on weekly basis (you can read the results at [link] ) and I've learned a huge amount from figuring out underlying cause of what I did wrong.
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