Pitfalls of autodidactism
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One of the problems with teaching myself stuff is I end up with my own lexicon and orthography for whatever is I'm dealing with, and then I run into walls trying to come up with solutions where I need input or help from other people. Having taught myself C++ and generic programming I'm facing one of those issues right now. I'm not sure it can be expressed in C++, and if so, it's through some magic like SFINAE (which i don't understand either) I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question. X|
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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One of the problems with teaching myself stuff is I end up with my own lexicon and orthography for whatever is I'm dealing with, and then I run into walls trying to come up with solutions where I need input or help from other people. Having taught myself C++ and generic programming I'm facing one of those issues right now. I'm not sure it can be expressed in C++, and if so, it's through some magic like SFINAE (which i don't understand either) I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question. X|
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
Great post & I really get what you mean. I am self-taught also & it seems, over the 33 years of my IT career that I've always been on the outside. However, I've also noticed that a lot of this is simply related to Ego. Let me explain a bit. I do not have any college degree, but I've read more books than any of the college grads I know. Oh, I understand that reading books doesn't teach you everything -- but it helps a lot and I've read so many that I now have a broader view of what people really know versus what is just BS spewed into a book (or into the air during a meeting). (I think you have that understanding too.) I know some people (am dealing with them right now) who absolutely believe that whatever they do is THE EXACT CORRECT WAY TO DO SOMETHING! I never feel that way. There are so many ways to do something and there is sometimes one or two ways which it is done best. But, there is rarely only one PERFECT way to do something. These other people's Egos are so HUGE that they are just like, "well I did it that way and that's why it's right". But, for me, it's different. I am interested in various ways to accomplish something & why one might be better than others. It's kind of the old saying, "The more I've learned, the more I learn that I have a whole lot more to learn." But, those other people, not so much. And, those people are not always complete asses. Not always. But often they are. You find them a lot in IT so you & I have to deal with them a lot. Debug In Your Head Let me give you one from a place I left a long time ago. Me: "What debugger do you use to debug the JavaScript in the application?" Ego-Dev: "Debug? I just debug in my head. I just figure it out." Now, the Ego-Dev was the Creator of that app and it was a complete Bus Transit system and it written back in 2002 (not much web tech for doing great apps then) and he was probably a literal genius in that code. But, do you see how stupid that idea of "debuggging in my head" is? It's the equivalent of saying "Oh, I don't use a hammer. I just bang the nails into boards with my fist." Tools make things easier. Genius Screamed Down My Neck But that guy was considered a genius at that company and he is still there. He actually came into my office one day and literally and completely stood over me and screamed down into my face one day. I thought he was going to punch me for real. I remember thinking "if the blows start raining down, I'm just going to take them and
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Great post & I really get what you mean. I am self-taught also & it seems, over the 33 years of my IT career that I've always been on the outside. However, I've also noticed that a lot of this is simply related to Ego. Let me explain a bit. I do not have any college degree, but I've read more books than any of the college grads I know. Oh, I understand that reading books doesn't teach you everything -- but it helps a lot and I've read so many that I now have a broader view of what people really know versus what is just BS spewed into a book (or into the air during a meeting). (I think you have that understanding too.) I know some people (am dealing with them right now) who absolutely believe that whatever they do is THE EXACT CORRECT WAY TO DO SOMETHING! I never feel that way. There are so many ways to do something and there is sometimes one or two ways which it is done best. But, there is rarely only one PERFECT way to do something. These other people's Egos are so HUGE that they are just like, "well I did it that way and that's why it's right". But, for me, it's different. I am interested in various ways to accomplish something & why one might be better than others. It's kind of the old saying, "The more I've learned, the more I learn that I have a whole lot more to learn." But, those other people, not so much. And, those people are not always complete asses. Not always. But often they are. You find them a lot in IT so you & I have to deal with them a lot. Debug In Your Head Let me give you one from a place I left a long time ago. Me: "What debugger do you use to debug the JavaScript in the application?" Ego-Dev: "Debug? I just debug in my head. I just figure it out." Now, the Ego-Dev was the Creator of that app and it was a complete Bus Transit system and it written back in 2002 (not much web tech for doing great apps then) and he was probably a literal genius in that code. But, do you see how stupid that idea of "debuggging in my head" is? It's the equivalent of saying "Oh, I don't use a hammer. I just bang the nails into boards with my fist." Tools make things easier. Genius Screamed Down My Neck But that guy was considered a genius at that company and he is still there. He actually came into my office one day and literally and completely stood over me and screamed down into my face one day. I thought he was going to punch me for real. I remember thinking "if the blows start raining down, I'm just going to take them and
raddevus wrote:
I just bang the nails into boards with my fist.
Thinking about some exciting ways to pull out the nails from boards...
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One of the problems with teaching myself stuff is I end up with my own lexicon and orthography for whatever is I'm dealing with, and then I run into walls trying to come up with solutions where I need input or help from other people. Having taught myself C++ and generic programming I'm facing one of those issues right now. I'm not sure it can be expressed in C++, and if so, it's through some magic like SFINAE (which i don't understand either) I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question. X|
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
I’ve learned programming all by myself too. Programming is associated with math. Everyone had the mindset “Math and programming go hand in hand”. I didn’t understand why people thought this way until very recently when I stumbled upon the problem of writing a serious steering algorithm for my strategy game. To get the things I want working I’m facing the challenge of learning the math lessons I skipped over when I was in high school. You don’t need math to learn a programming language that’s true. However you won’t get too far if you don’t know math in a complex program.
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One of the problems with teaching myself stuff is I end up with my own lexicon and orthography for whatever is I'm dealing with, and then I run into walls trying to come up with solutions where I need input or help from other people. Having taught myself C++ and generic programming I'm facing one of those issues right now. I'm not sure it can be expressed in C++, and if so, it's through some magic like SFINAE (which i don't understand either) I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question. X|
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
honey the codewitch wrote:
I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question.
"Fire bad." Maybe you have to explain it at that level? :-) Remember, they say if you can't explain something so a 5-year old understands, you don't understand it nearly as well as you think you do. I had a (childless) co-worker adapt that saying to explaining something to his dog. Between us, I don't think the damned dog ever wrote a single line of code in its entire life. :laugh: I don't necessarily keep up with all the latest and greatest coding fads. A few years ago I remember reading something on design patterns and thinking to myself, I've already been doing that for years. That's new? Turns out, I've been using various design patterns for decades, I just never assigned them any fancy name.
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honey the codewitch wrote:
I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question.
"Fire bad." Maybe you have to explain it at that level? :-) Remember, they say if you can't explain something so a 5-year old understands, you don't understand it nearly as well as you think you do. I had a (childless) co-worker adapt that saying to explaining something to his dog. Between us, I don't think the damned dog ever wrote a single line of code in its entire life. :laugh: I don't necessarily keep up with all the latest and greatest coding fads. A few years ago I remember reading something on design patterns and thinking to myself, I've already been doing that for years. That's new? Turns out, I've been using various design patterns for decades, I just never assigned them any fancy name.
I inserted my OP from here as a disclaimer, and then posted my question over on reddit but I haven't had much luck there. One person tried to be helpful, but I don't think they understood my question. Nevertheless, they gave me an idea, but it didn't work. Oh well. https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp_questions/comments/1dluti9/how_do_i_filter_arguments_from_a_parameter_pack/[^]
dandy72 wrote:
Turns out, I've been using various design patterns for decades, I just never assigned them any fancy name.
If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I'd have a sock full of nickels to beat annoying people about the head with.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I inserted my OP from here as a disclaimer, and then posted my question over on reddit but I haven't had much luck there. One person tried to be helpful, but I don't think they understood my question. Nevertheless, they gave me an idea, but it didn't work. Oh well. https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp_questions/comments/1dluti9/how_do_i_filter_arguments_from_a_parameter_pack/[^]
dandy72 wrote:
Turns out, I've been using various design patterns for decades, I just never assigned them any fancy name.
If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I'd have a sock full of nickels to beat annoying people about the head with.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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One of the problems with teaching myself stuff is I end up with my own lexicon and orthography for whatever is I'm dealing with, and then I run into walls trying to come up with solutions where I need input or help from other people. Having taught myself C++ and generic programming I'm facing one of those issues right now. I'm not sure it can be expressed in C++, and if so, it's through some magic like SFINAE (which i don't understand either) I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question. X|
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
I'm not sure if it would help, but you might get in touch with an old friend of mine from college; I became an engineer, she diverged into a brilliant software developer. Her company is thriving and I can barely understand her language anymore, though her webinars are interesting. https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-geller-856491116/[^]
Will Rogers never met me.
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One of the problems with teaching myself stuff is I end up with my own lexicon and orthography for whatever is I'm dealing with, and then I run into walls trying to come up with solutions where I need input or help from other people. Having taught myself C++ and generic programming I'm facing one of those issues right now. I'm not sure it can be expressed in C++, and if so, it's through some magic like SFINAE (which i don't understand either) I simply don't have the language necessary to ask the question. X|
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
My personal blog has a page devoted to autodidactism though I did not know it was it was referred to as such. The main point of the article is that autodidactism has no pitfalls. Well maybe this one exception.
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My personal blog has a page devoted to autodidactism though I did not know it was it was referred to as such. The main point of the article is that autodidactism has no pitfalls. Well maybe this one exception.
Oh there are other issues, like having large or critical holes in one's knowledge vs having been taught formally, and probably the worst one - getting it wrong - learning something incorrectly, and then having expended all that effort only to have to unlearn it and relearn it the right way.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Oh there are other issues, like having large or critical holes in one's knowledge vs having been taught formally, and probably the worst one - getting it wrong - learning something incorrectly, and then having expended all that effort only to have to unlearn it and relearn it the right way.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
Thank you for your no doubt useful thoughts. Please permit me to consider further. I have never understood why an instructor reciting information exactly identical to that which can be obtained from any number of text authors is superior. If you wish to read my brief essay on the subject the address is How to Save on College Tuition (and get a superior education in the offing)[^] re/ "getting it wrong" it seems to me technical subjects have an advantage id est the problems at the end of each chapter can either be solved or not exempli gratia either the software / circuit performs as required or not. On a personal note I hated / hated / hated taking notes. If I wished to train as a note taking secretary I would have trained as such though a fellow student once told me doing so helps her greatly. I recall one lecture in particular I refused to take notes but instead listened intently and found for onceI understood everything perfectly.
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Thank you for your no doubt useful thoughts. Please permit me to consider further. I have never understood why an instructor reciting information exactly identical to that which can be obtained from any number of text authors is superior. If you wish to read my brief essay on the subject the address is How to Save on College Tuition (and get a superior education in the offing)[^] re/ "getting it wrong" it seems to me technical subjects have an advantage id est the problems at the end of each chapter can either be solved or not exempli gratia either the software / circuit performs as required or not. On a personal note I hated / hated / hated taking notes. If I wished to train as a note taking secretary I would have trained as such though a fellow student once told me doing so helps her greatly. I recall one lecture in particular I refused to take notes but instead listened intently and found for onceI understood everything perfectly.
I'd say it's not superior. It has its own problems, like a tendency to box you into the instructor's point of view.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I'd say it's not superior. It has its own problems, like a tendency to box you into the instructor's point of view.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx And my IoT UI/User Experience library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
One of the points made in my essay is the superiority of autodidactism is at least due to the opportunity to read multiple authors. I discovered even in specialized technical fields different authors have new and different things to say even on the same subject.
