Hacker News with Generative AI: Experience

Experts have it easy (2024) (boydkane.com)
Something that’s painfully understudied is how experts are more efficient than novices while achieving better results. I say understudied and not unstudied, because it’s common knowledge that charging people for their time results in experts being paid less since they work faster, which is why experts charge more for their time.

Programming, Software Development, Experience, Productivity, Efficiency

203 points by veqq 6 days ago | 124 comments

Experience Doesn't Stack: The Myth of Collective Knowledge (joanwestenberg.com)
We treat knowledge like so much cargo. Stack it high enough, gather enough people, and surely you'll reach critical mass. Twenty smart people, each with a year of experience, must be just as good as one person with twenty years. Right?

Experience, Knowledge Management, Human Resources, Work, Myth

5 points by giardini 9 days ago | 0 comments

Hunting for dark nights and wishing on stars (hcn.org)
Shadows cast 10 miles long as the last sun tucks between ridges and mountain tops. Dusk falls faster on our basin side and slower on the other side, the sunset watched not by looking toward it but by looking in the opposite direction toward blood-orange peaks. End-of-day light climbs the highest summits till it’s airborne, and we fall into the shadow of the Earth. My internal compass starts up, shoulders relaxing as I settle into cardinal directions, brain tingling with orientation.

Nature, Photography, Travel, Experience

23 points by occurrence 25 days ago | 5 comments

Welcome to the Era of Experience - Richard Sutton [pdf] (googleapis.com)

Experience, AI, Research

14 points by npalli 34 days ago | 0 comments

Beware tech career advice from old heads – Jacob Kaplan-Moss (jacobian.org)
If you’re new to tech – say, less than 5 years in the field – you should take career advice from people who’ve been in the industry more than 10-15 years with enormous skepticism.

Technology, Careers, Advice, Experience

35 points by raybb 71 days ago | 46 comments

Gaining Years of Experience in a Few Months (marcgg.com)
This is a followup to what I wrote about how someone can have 5 times 1 year of experience instead of 5 years of experience. Note that some concepts and ideas will overlap as this is just a different way to look at the same question of career growth and pace of learning.

Career Growth, Learning, Experience, Time Management

80 points by kiyanwang 96 days ago | 49 comments

You're not a senior engineer until you've worked on a legacy project (2023) (infobip.com)
Everybody hates working on legacy projects, myself included. As fate would have it, one landed in my lap recently. While working on it didn’t make me hate legacy projects any less, it did help me get a deeper understanding of the processes and practices we use today.

Software Engineering, Legacy Code, Software Development, Experience

783 points by tonkkatonka 98 days ago | 412 comments

Seven things I know after 25 years of development (zverok.space)
This is a loose transcript of a keynote I gave at the EuRuKo conference in September 2024. The video of the talk is here. Unfortunately, I only could talk in recording, but it was a great honor nevertheless. The topic is pretty important to me, so I decided to share a slightly edited transcript for those who prefer text form.

Software Development, Experience, Conferences, Technology, Keynotes

6 points by sharjeelsayed 114 days ago | 0 comments

I've been writing software for the last 25 years. Here some things I learned so (rpanachi.com)
The computer was born to solve problems that did not exist before. – Bill Gates

Software Development, Experience, Programming, Bill Gates

5 points by todsacerdoti 217 days ago | 0 comments

The disunity of consciousness in everyday experience (blogspot.com)
A substantial philosophical literature explores the "unity of consciousness": If I experience A, B, and C at the same time, A, B, and C will normally in some sense (exactly what sense is disputed) be experientially conjoined.

Philosophy, Consciousness, Experience

159 points by Hooke 255 days ago | 113 comments

On Being a Senior Engineer (2012) (kitchensoap.com)

Software Engineering, Career Advice, Experience

155 points by rspivak 278 days ago | 111 comments

Ask HN: Could experienced developers have near 0 online prescence? (ycombinator.com)

Software Development, Online Presence, Career, Experience

23 points by cloudedcordial 301 days ago | 37 comments

Lessons learned in 35 years of making software (jimgrey.net)

Software Development, Experience, Lessons Learned

78 points by r4um 313 days ago | 9 comments

What I've learned about open source community over 30 years (opensource.net)

Open Source, Community, Experience, Software Development

176 points by throw0101b 326 days ago | 85 comments

Ask HN: Does last job experience 4 years ago make my application unattractive? (ycombinator.com)