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Experts have it easy (2024)

https://boydkane.com/essays/experts
42•veqq•4h ago

Comments

9dev•17h ago
> Having someone who’s happy to spend time “just talking”, without any specific goal to solve, will go a long way.

This is actually something I love doing with our junior developers: Often they have a question every once in a while, or they don't have any questions for too long so I ask them what they're doing currently. Both often leads to me taking a look, and discovering that they're like five miles deep into a dead end without realising it yet, and we spend an hour or two working on their problem together.

I love that time, since they usually start asking more and become increasingly confident calling my decisions into question, which in turn leads me to reflect on why I do things the way I do them, and we both end up smarter than we have been before.

One other thing I often notice is that when you're good at something, you don't care about looking good doing it. I have no qualms admitting I don't know something, or that I'd also start asking AI, or just throw some at the wall and see what sticks. This tends to build up a lot of trust with the juniors, since they realise I'm also just putting my trousers on one leg at a time.

Sure, it can be frustrating sometimes to wait for them to just… get the obvious right in front of them, but that usually comes very quickly. I can wholeheartedly recommend spending time with your juniors!

pixl97•2h ago
Taking mechanical stuff apart and fixing it is one of these areas.

One of the more recent ones I watched is taking apart large wenches on a bulldozer. There is a metal plate with two bolts on it you have to take off. If you don't know what you're doing you take both bolts out and it flies apart losing stuff because there is a spring behind the mechanism. If you know what you're doing you take out one bolt then put in a bolt twice as long before taking out the second bolt, the long bolt catches the mechanism and releases the spring tension keeping all your parts in one place.

greazy•2h ago
Would that not be documented by the manufacturer somewhere?
edelbitter•2h ago
> unguided “water-cooler” interaction

This meme needs to stop. Knowledge transfer from experts to novices is way too important to be left to chance. And thanks to pre-pivot StackOverflow we even have considerable data on how much better it can be done, at least for white collar industries. Reducing the effort of experts to give advice, and enlarging the audience benefiting from a singular effort to write it down is orders of magnitude better than chance.

elcritch•49m ago
What? No, those free form unguided interactions are very useful for most novices. They're not a replacement for more structured knowledge teansfer, but an important compliment. Sure some novices are just natural talents that can pick up complex material from structured content alone. They're few though.

> The expert’s intuition is often formidable, but rarely comprehensible. This inability to clearly explain their decisions is what makes it so useful for novices to spend time with experts. Often there’s an underlying pattern that the novice can pick up through careful observation, even if neither the expert nor the novice can properly articulate this pattern.

That explains part of it well. It's also an effect you can observe with graduate students of nobel prize winners tending to be "related" to professors who won nobel prizes or were part of their labs, etc. There's lessons imparted far beyond the structured material which is often available.

Things like mindset, culture, and more are shared this way.

Remote work is great, but it does limit these free form personal interactions which can be so invaluable. I'm a big fan of the potential for VR and AR to enable these experiences with remote work.

elcritch•44m ago
Chicken "sexing" is a fun example of how expert knowledge can be transferred without either expert or novice being able to explain it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7OgZdxRnog&t=174

philipswood•41m ago
You don't need to wait for AR/VR. For computer work the real space of interaction is currently the screen. Unstructured pair programming for two remotes with a shared screen and audio and chat is a way more effective interaction than most things you could do together at the office.

Even better if both of you have two screens - so besides the shared space, you have a separate work area where you can Google things, ask the AI, spelunk the codebase for related relevant features or try one-liners.

coderintherye•2h ago
>Don’t study the “common” things, but go all-in on the niche pockets. The common things are common enough that you’ll learn them through osmosis regardless of what your main activity is. But the niche things require active study, and ignoring the niches is how you remain a novice.

I'd add, work on the niche things that no one else wants to work on but need to be done. That's how I quickly advanced in my career, becoming knowledgeable about systems no one else wanted to touch.

MichaelRo•1h ago
As a "senior" (expert) software developer you got a slight edge over a junior as long as you work in the same domain of expertise. As soon as you change project, you're at loss.

General intelligence helps but can't make up for domain-specific expertise. Example: move from accounting software to map navigation software. Clueless. Move from map navigation software to financial software. Within financial software move from quantitative pricing to exchange interfacing. Clueless.

Sure, you mostly get away with it but inevitably problems will arise that you have no idea what's causing them or even that they are a problem, so you spend days and weeks chasing what the expert figures out in minutes.

That's why I prefer to keep the domain when changing jobs because it adds up to being just a software developer.

philipswood•37m ago
The edge is not slight. And usually in a new domain you're usually not completely clueless. There is value in growing a truly deep expertise by spending a lot of time in one domain, but a lot of the deeper skills do transfer (or partially transfer) and having mastered a few domains tend to give you deeper meta-skills.
harrall•11m ago
While that is true, you also end up learning foundational concepts.

While learning electrical engineering, you might be forced to get good at vector calculus, and then when you move over to mapping software or physical chemistry, it turns out you use the same vector calculus.

Applying that vector calculus may be different but it’s trivial compared to learning vector calculus for your first time.

So while it’s true you might “start from zero,” you can learn new concepts much faster.

Mountains with a Fuji View

https://www.emgoto.com/fuji-view-hikes/
1•nivethan•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: EndurePath – Fast emotion tracking, tiny boosters, and gamified growth

https://endurepath.com
1•lectoratium•15m ago•0 comments

A MiniKvm to rule all machines remotely

https://www.andrea-allievi.com/blog/a-minikvm-to-rule-all-machines-remotely/
1•transpute•20m ago•0 comments

Google's AlphaEvolve: ToolKami Style

https://toolkami.com/alphaevolve-toolkami-style/
2•SafeDusk•28m ago•1 comments

AniGen – The First Short-Form AI Animation Competition

https://komiko.app/anigen-competition
1•PaulineGar•43m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Do people actually pay for small web tools?

2•scratchyone•47m ago•0 comments

Google says Linux Terminal VM feature isn't replacement for Android desktop mode

https://www.androidauthority.com/android-linux-terminal-purpose-3535765/
3•transpute•1h ago•0 comments

White tiger controversy: Zoos shouldn't raise these animals. (2012)

https://slate.com/technology/2012/12/white-tiger-controversy-zoos-shouldnt-raise-these-inbred-ecologically-irrelevant-animals.html
2•Tomte•1h ago•0 comments

What Does 'Off the Record' Mean? (2018)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/reader-center/off-the-record-meaning.html
2•Tomte•1h ago•0 comments

Last NeXT Computer Website

https://web.archive.org/web/20001215082000/http://www.apple.com/enterprise/
2•behnamoh•1h ago•0 comments

Why Gamers Are Furious over Take-Two and 2K's New Terms of Service

https://medium.com/@DarkRa/why-gamers-are-furious-over-take-two-and-2ks-new-terms-of-service-051e7a6a5594
2•Throwthrowbob•1h ago•0 comments

Fearmongering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearmongering
10•downboots•1h ago•0 comments

There Won't Be Spam Ads in the Future – Thanks to AI

2•mrkrieg•1h ago•6 comments

Optimizing JavaScript Delivery: Signals vs. React Compiler

https://redmonk.com/kholterhoff/2025/05/13/javascript-signals-react-compiler/
2•mooreds•1h ago•0 comments

"Mario Kart 64" decompilation project reaches 100% completion

https://gbatemp.net/threads/mario-kart-64-decompilation-project-reaches-100-completion.671104/
3•OuterVale•2h ago•0 comments

Every programming language has its 'killer' domain

https://huijzer.xyz/posts/67
17•todsacerdoti•2h ago•30 comments

Bandfix - I've built an app for musicians to manage their bands

https://bandfix.by/
2•julbasina•2h ago•0 comments

What type of PC-configuration do you have?

1•bolthid•2h ago•3 comments

Show HN: Chat with 19 years of HN

https://app.camelai.com/log-in?next=/hn/
19•vercantez•2h ago•7 comments

The Death of Medium by AI

https://dominictobias.medium.com/the-death-of-medium-by-ai-8618b244ba0b
1•ferahl•2h ago•0 comments

AIT_AII as 10x10x100x100 ( tree of leaves and a bed of petals)

1•bolthid•2h ago•0 comments

Norway's Grapple with Falling Birthrate

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/17/rethink-what-we-expect-from-parents-norway-grapple-with-falling-birthrate
4•andsoitis•2h ago•3 comments

Rutger Bregman Wants to Save Elites from Their Wasted Lives

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/magazine/rutger-bregman-interview.html
2•mitchbob•2h ago•1 comments

US loses last perfect credit rating amid rising debt

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ge0xk4ld1o
64•WillDaSilva•2h ago•3 comments

Deployer: The PHP deployment tool with support popular frameworks out of the box

https://deployer.org/
1•sawirricardo•2h ago•0 comments

Apple Used China to Make a Profit. What China Got in Return Is Scarier.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/books/review/apple-in-china-patrick-mcgee.html
2•mitchbob•2h ago•1 comments

Important Announcement: The Future of Authelia

https://www.authelia.com/blog/important-announcement-the-future-of-authelia/
3•thunderbong•2h ago•1 comments

Debian Installer Trixie RC 1 release

https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2025/20250517
1•neustradamus•2h ago•0 comments

'Unauthorized' change to Grok made it blather on about 'White genocide'

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/16/grok_white_genocide_ai/
11•gizzlon•2h ago•2 comments

Lightfriend.ai – I built a way to live with a dumbphone

https://lightfriend.ai/
6•thunderbong•3h ago•1 comments