Og's Log - Volume #1

How to become expert at thing.

I’m about to begin a new role and it’s time to up-skill / re-skill. In order to consistently evaluate what I am learning and measure my progress, I’ve decided to detail this journey in Og’s Log. Herewith, is Volume #1. Will my current exuberance for study overwhelm the inevitable fatigue of a full time job, raising 2 small children and a healthy appetite for Age of Empires 2? Well if it does, we may actually see a Volume #2, Dear Reader.

In my optimism, I’ve identified a few books that I believe are essential to my self inflicted erudition. Namely:

• The Mythical Man Month (Frederick P. Brooks Jr.)

• The Pragmatic Programmer (Andrew Hunt and David Thomas)

• Design Patterns (Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) (Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides)

• Clean Architecture (Robert C Martin)

• Clean Code (Robert C Martin)

• The Clean Coder (Robert C Martin)

• Rework (David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried)

The above books seem to transcend language / framework. It’s good stuff to know whether you’re working in Spring Boot and Java or NextJS and Typescript.

But, I won’t be working in the abstract realm of software design, I’ll be plying my trade in various JS environments, smashing some NextJS and weaving Typescript (or just asking Grok: “Hey, make this app work. No mistakes.”).

So, here are some resources that are more directly related to the software I shall be crafting:

• Eloquent Javascript (Marijn Haverbeke)

• Learning Typescript (Josh Goldberg)

• NextJS Tutorial (here)

• Build and Deploy a Modern Next.js Application (Cool YouTube Video)

The thing about learning stuff is that it’s easy to get lost in the sea of resources available. I think it’s been referred to as “Tutorial Hell” - when you simply do one tutorial after another, gathering bits of info, but neglecting what you initially set out to achieve. In order to combat this unruly temptation I’ll invoke this maxim posted by Andrej Karpathy:

How to become expert at thing.

Let us briefly discuss each point, Dear Reader.

#1 Learning on Demand

You need some breadth in order to orientate yourself within the subject matter. But learning stuff “just in case” can be a waste of time (I did 3 years of economics in undergrad for some reason). In the book “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” (which, ironically, I haven’t finished reading), the author states “that reading any particular book is a waste of time compared to keeping our perspective about books overall.” He later states that “we should tend toward exhaustiveness rather than the accumulation of isolated bits of knowledge.”

It’s like having a mental map of concepts that you can draw upon. When a problem displays certain patterns that would be amenable to a given paradigm of solving things you can reference that map and lift that concept. LLMs seems like a good tool to surface this kind of thing. YMMV, I suppose.

“Being cultivated is a matter not of having read any book in particular, but of being able to find your bearings within books as a system…”

#2 Summarize in Your Own Words

Hey, that’s what I’m doing now! How meta…

This is the point of the Og’s Log blog. Well, one of the points. One thing I read once was that students who wrote notes during a lecture recalled the lecture better than those who didn’t regardless of whether or not they revisited the notes. I assume that those who revisited the notes did best of all, but it’s telling that the simple act of taking notes can have such an effect. I guess it forces you to summarize in your own words.

Nigflot blorny quando floon.

#3 Only Compare to a Younger You

Younger me was younger, fitter and better looking. The bastard. But, he was inexperienced, and, well, a bit (more) of a moron. So, I’ve learned some things, gained some hard won experience. Heck, I’m almost 40. Still, we strive to learn more stuff, because, why the heck not, right? Need to do something.

So, compare yourself to aspects of that younger you, the aspects you want to improve upon.

And, honestly - I just want to have fun with it. Yes, I want to improve some aspects that will make my career more rewarding, for various reasons, but I definitely want to enjoy the process (despite [or because of?] the challenges).

So, what’s the plan here?

So, the study load must be manageable; and I will continue to refine what I’d like to learn.

But for now, I have these goals for the next couple of weeks:

I reserve the right to change this plan at my whim

I shall endeavour to update Og’s Log, Dear Reader.

But for now, wish me luck, and may the winds of fortune blow in your general direction.