Read, or at least RTFM or STFW!
I will often peruse various resources like Stack,, IRC, GitHub or https://devdocs.io to get me in the mood for the task at hand. I do this because, like many of us out there, we wear many hats.
Ultimately, I started paying attention to duplicates, recycled issues, and the likes; stuff that seems obvious but for someone else , a show-stopper. And I get it, we all start not knowing and then, we crawl are way up from there, and without guidance from the wise, this wouldn’t happen, so thank you for your support, whoever you are, sincerely.
I also understand the need to get things done, and quickly! So this tool and that library and this framework, will definitively give me the edge according to the latest research and trends and requirements or whatever other valid reason.
With experience, you get good at what you do, unless you’re doing it wrong, then you’re cementing bad habits. Some of the benefits of expertise permits us to identify patterns in our field of work, understand conventions and protocols, create strategies and round up the team (or yourself) and execute with finesse; that’s deep knowledge folks.
Jumping in head first is a hacker’s superpower and weakness.
You need to be curious, witty and confident to be a McGyver, but most of all, knowledgeable. I’m guilty of starting projects without having a complete understanding of the tolls and resources I’m using, yet. And since there’s support from the community, I’ll quickly be on my way, no problems.
And yet, after almost 40 years as an “expert”, learning the fundamentals and simplifying still makes my life better.
Here’s an expert at work?!
A programmer with the goal of developing a fitness PWA (Progressive Web App), is reviewing the myriad of solutions available. Angular, for instance, looks fantastic, so he adapts the project and learns Angular in Depth and TypeScript in 5 minutes.
While developing, with code snippets from one place and grabbing solutions from another, the app grows in complexity as it does in functionality, but it’s trendy!
And then major bugs and security flaws creep up. There’s a race to fix ‘em; quickly patch and everything’s back to normal, so it will seem. Overtime, that witch was build this way becomes bloated and confusing. Leading to questions nobody can answer except the engineers of the catastrophe, if they remain alive. Sounds so grim, doesn’t it?
It seems, to me, that too many people proceed down the path of the coolest and latest, rather than sticking to the fundamentals, and their eagerness to be cool is creating gazillions of Forever Asked Questions, others have to deal with.
The best way to learn is to read effectively, and read a lot.
That says it all, case and point.
Certain readings are treasure troves of timeless knowledge. If you are a JavaScript programmer and you haven’t read Eloquent JavaScript, go now. You’re a system administrator God? Pick up the Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook. Thank me later.
If you haven’t read the manual for something, before you asked questions, remember this: Someone else has probably ran into the same issue you’re have, but first. No one was around for them. They had to figure it out, like most pioneers do. Probably by reading, testing and repeating. And then they wrote about it for you to find and learn, somehow. The web makes it even easier today.
The inquisitive stupid will never be enlightened! They remain as stupid as the question was…
That is it for me today, so be good and let’s bring back ‘ol slangs like ; RTFM or STFW!
