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by xorcist
1465 days ago
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Thank you. I'm hearing enough things along similar lines to feel odd about it. So many people wear their impostor syndrome with pride I don't know how to handle it. It's supposed to be ok to have no idea what you are doing. Except it's not. We're living in an era where information is more abundant than ever before. Just read the manual. At least get a basic idea how that library or framework works before putting two lines together. If not for the end result then at least for intellectual pride. It's probably partly down to age, but it's more and more common and I am uncomfortable. |
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On the lower end of experience/expertise (I acknowledge they're not actually the same thing), it is minimally dangerous and highly useful advice -- in the sense that, it helps lower the barrier to entry for beginners into a field. Making something approachable, is generally worth it, even at the risk of giving beginners undue overconfidence or letting them make early mistakes. Just getting someone to even start (and making it easier for them to stick to something new, and not give up too early because it's hard), is more important than doing "the right thing" (pragmatism > perfectionism)... assuming guardrails exist to prevent beginners from doing fatal damage (not true in all domains).
In the middle range of experience, is where this advice becomes maximally dangerous and minimally useful -- it doesn't just give false confidence, but specifically to those in this range who "know just enough to be dangerous." The advice can become an impediment to learning, if someone comes to believe "I don't need to learn anything more, since no one else knows anything, and therefore nobody can teach me anything." People who get stuck here, are the most dangerous.
At the high end of experience/expertise, the advice actually becomes useful again. The expert can appreciate the dangers of ignorance, while also appreciating the need for them to manage/mentor/guide beginners in the field. Likewise, the expert generally re-learns a certain level of humility, because now that they "know everything there is to know", they also appreciate how little they actually know in the grand scheme of things (e.g. see cosmologists or particle physicists).
I seem to recall some kind of saying, something about how hard and precious/valuable it is, for an expert to be able to re-learn the ability to approach problems with a beginner's mindset, with naive curiosity and unburdened by years of accumulated fears or biases? So anyways, the "nobody knows" advice becomes useful again, and helps experts renew their perspective.