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by tominous 3561 days ago
I love the author's meta-idea of refusing to accept that unfamiliar things are black boxes full of magic that can't be touched.

A great example of this mindset is the guy who bought a mainframe. [1]

Refuse to be placed in a silo. Work your way up and down the stack and you'll be much better placed to solve problems and learn from the patterns that repeat at all levels.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11376711
1 comments
stephengillie 3561 days ago
Everything is made from smaller components. Understand each of those components better and you'll understand the entire system better.

Sometimes, you can use end-errors to tell which component has the issue. For instance, if a web site gives a 502 error, the problem is likely with the load balancer or lower network stack on the web server. 404 would often be a file system level issue on the web server. 500 is frequently a network issue between web server and database server. 400 is a problem with the site presentation code, or maybe database malforming addresses.

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dspillett 3561 days ago
> Everything is made from smaller components. Understand each of those components better and you'll understand the entire system better.

This. No matter how specialised you are (or want to be) always strive to have at least a basic understanding of the full stack and everything else that your work touches through a couple of levels of indirection (including the wetware such as, in commercial contexts, having a good understanding of your client's business even if you aren't even close to being client-facing) because it will help you produce much more useful/optimal output and can be a lot more helpful when your colleagues/compatriots/partners/what-ever his a technical problem. Heck, at the logical extreme a little cross discipline understanding could even lead you to discovering a better method of doing X that strips out the need for Y altogether, revolutionising how we do Z.

Of course don't go overboard unless you are truly a genius... Trying to keep up with everything in detail is a sure-fire route to mental burn-out!

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