You say "Talent is greatly overvalued" I couldnt agree more, i always try to talk about this as well. Ronnie the rocket osullivan (the mozart of snooker) is always called "genius and naturally talented" by media. He ALWAYS responds: "Its not about genius or talent, i have been chained to the snooker table practicing 8 hours per day since i was seven years old." Go grit and perseverance! See you later today maybe :) / Martin
I remember my manager 3 years ago said "Oh we hired a graduate before you, who can do this much faster than you; I guess you are not the 10x programmer I am looking for." I severely hate any words that are related to 10x, cowboy, ninja, and rockstar programmers from that point on.
I absolutely love this video. As someone who teaches people how to code, I see the learning curve on how to deal with frustration with every new group of students. What I have found to be useful is to acknowledge multiple times over the course of the program the fact that this frustration will exist and there are a ton of ways to deal with that frustration in a healthy way, i.e. walking (like you said), just getting some air, etc. That said, I'm going to send this to my students to watch. Awesome video! Thank you!
This is a great topic MPJ, As an older generation of programmer coping with rapid growth of web development toolsets these days, perseverance is honestly the one compass in the storm that keeps me going. One thing I have learned in my years of doing this is to trust my intuition and follow my natural instincts to solving problems, and as you said lean hard into problems. Your Monday Morning videos are a great pick me up!
This video couldn't have come at a better time for me. I've been running out of gas dealing with what I'd consider chaos-driven-development and having difficulty finding the motivation to do even the simplest dev tasks. The frustration train more than hit me, it's completely run me over and I don't have the energy to deal with all the bullshit, unfortunately I've been tuning out and finding distractions almost everywhere. Thanks for the reminder to persevere! Your videos are great, keep it up!
Big Thanks, MPJ! Found myself consciously thinking about being perseverant today. This several hours in working flow considerably different from my usual experience - I am more productive and happier after all!
What you said about talant and hitting the wall harder because it's about your identity was nothing short of genius. I've battled this problem all my life but never been able to express it. You nailed it! And now I understand. Thank you!
You absolutely nailed this one, Mattias. 5:52 - being faced with problems you don't know how to solve, unknown time to solution, whether it's possible at all... these have absolutely been challenges for me as my development skill and scale of projects have both increased over time. (It really is a daily f'ing thing!) And 6:59, on bugs: reproducability, getting useful data from users, tracing to the root cause... also daily life. Including "some BS in another system"! And so forth. 13:20 particularly resonates, too - I think undervaluing our own talent is built right in to being a developer. Your insight that it becomes a way to shift blame is revealing... I could go on, but this comment might get way too long. I'm a big fan - keep making great content! ^JMJ (opinions my own and not those of my company as named above, etc)
Thanks for such an amazing talk. My father whom is also a very talented engineer told me how been relentless and persevering to solve the problem is such a critical trait for a software developer/engineer and your analysis on success driven values and traits. This video was released at the time that I had an interview and will start my first job as a budding Full Stack Software Engineer. I always treat the learning mentality as a long-term commitment to my growth. Awesome video and I always look forward to your vids. Keep up the good work
You have rightly summarized the qualities that would make a developer lead a life of balance, fulfillment and growth. Keep going and make these great videos.
Very good video. Grit is one of the main things I'm trying to teach my young children. Don't give up, stand in the problem and stare it down. Give it some time to sink in because as you analyze it and make attempts at it you learn more about the problem. This is what eventually leads to solving it It is the slow and steady progress against the things we don't know. Problem solving is learning, and you have to be ok with not knowing very much as a percentage of things you could possibly know in the whole universe. I really liked your illustration of how when you learn something in the programming field you realize that there is even more that you don't know. And as a full stack developer this can be really daunting sometimes. You can only know so many things super deep and that only comes after working with a technology or paradigm for a long enough time. Keep up the great work, I love your videos. It inspires me to consider carving out the time to teach others in some format. I've always loved sharing my knowledge with others, but the last few years have found myself so bogged down in my day to day that I haven't had the chance to be as involved as I like. :) Happy Monday!
Thanks for your kind words, I definitely recommend carving out time for some kind of teaching to your schedule, it's extremely rewarding (and also happens to be an extremely effective way of learning, too)
You really know that you understand something when you can teach it. It was always fun to teach others and have them point out some blind spots in my knowledge or assumptions that something just works a certain way. Definitely need to find a way back into that.
mpj, thank you very much for this video and I look forward to the rest of the series. For the last few years I've been working to become a developer at our company, and I'm finally writing plugins, customizations, and can have some input on the product itself. It's been great but emotionally draining for many of the reasons you spoke of here... it's so hard to be confident in what you are learning, persevering, and keeping emotion & ego in check. I really appreciate you talking about all this because... how often do we really. Its nice to know I'm not alone, I will preservere!
This is just an amazing video. Coming from a social sciences background, and being conditioned by 17 years of school that one must know the right answer to a question/problem straight away when asked, it took me quite a while to internalize the fact that such a scenario is completely unrealistic when writing code. Also, your statement that the more you learn, the more you realize how many more things there are left to learn really resonated with me. I'm curious about the book you recommend at the end, "How to Solve It". Can you give any more details about it? Thanks!
I felt this video in my skin this weekend. I started to learn Mobile Development with Cordova. But I couldn't install the Android SDK in my machine. 3 days! 3 entire days I got to solve this problem. I got myself very frustrated, but I have to learn, because my boss can give a new opportunity in my job. And after a lot of 'walks' and 'curse the computer', I was able to solve the problem.
I started learning C# and Unity 3 weeks ago. First two weeks I was just looking through documentation, watching different tutorials on unity, doing c# course on Microsoft Virtual Academy and 3rd week I started my own little project (classic pong game clone). I've hit so many walls when developing something for the first time by myself but google/stack overflow helped me a lot. But perseverance was the key; I would produce a bug in my game flow and I would spend 4-5 hours just to wrap my head around it and debug the shit out of it and I would finally fix it. It felt so satisfying. I'm satisfied with my progress so far and I'll just keep doing this again and again while increasing the difficulty of my projects and I think I'll learn a lot! Perseverance is the key indeed. :)
I love your videos where you talk about psychological questions, or anything that has to do more with human traits and characteristics than programming, Like "Mission Clarity...", "Staying Productive...". And when you recommend books. I love your channel and I think it should have way more subscribers. I'll do my contribution spreading the word :)
Hi, I am a junior front end developer just started my job 6 months ago, I found this video beneficial, it is relevant to what I am going through so far, and will try out your suggestions. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Love your talks, and insights. Over the last months I've come to realize how often you say 'Just'. Your Scandinavian pronunciation of the 'J' beginning is to feel like tiny darts being poked in my ears :-)
As a new software developer listening to this has been great, putting all my insecurities into perspective, looking forward to next instalments, thanks mpj
Thanks so much for posting, this video was super helpful and uplifting. I find myself faced with a lot of the same issues as a researcher in graduate school. While the advice you gave was directly useful for programming, which I do a lot of, it was also more generally useful in thinking about how to manage productivity and attitude about hard problems in all aspects of my work. Thanks for the great video!
Excellent video! I think that the general idea that you talked about is to make small victories (like narrow down the problem). That's a great way to not fell shitty through the day. Keep with the excellent work! Until next Monday
This was very timely for me. Just the other day I was having doubts about how realistic learning ML is for myself, being that I am "not great at math". I have have worked through similar doubts in the past, or else I wouldn't be a developer, but it helps to find some extra external support too :)
You nailed one of the most key things people leave out about work in general, and I really want to commend you on that: Part of work is not working. I've worked for start ups before where they put a lot of emphasis on staying late and "always be coding" and that is...not sustainable. And it's not productive either. If you're always working, you're less efficient and your brain needs breaks. That's why some companies not in the US have 6 or 7 hour work days rather than 8 and found that those places are as productive, if not more productive. We work to live, not live to work. Your brain needs rest. Good call.
Great video, as a dev and a marathon runner, I agree, development is not a sprint. When I was younger I had some talent (not a lot, but some :P ) and when I started working on bigger systems the frustration bomb hit me hard. Grit, perseverance, and processes helped me grow and become a half decent dev. Like a marathon there is going to be some brutal sections, steep hills, the last 7km is always a struggle. Working smart not hard isn't a real thing, when it comes down to it, hard work is going to be a necessity to get where you want to be, working smart when you can will take some pressure off.
You often recommend books. Some I have bought (e.g. The Mythical Man-Month), others I have sadly forgotten about. Do you have an aggregated list of books you recommend?
Oh man, thanks for this. There's so much mental energy that goes into developing (or just finding a JOB!) It's easy to quit and give up, so thanks for making this video. Love the mix of programming + psych
It's so true! When I first started I would get so frustrated and exhausted. Sometimes I could only do 20 minutes, take a break, and try again after a few hours or the next day. Fast forward 2 years later and I can focus much longer. It's hard to recognize it as a skill but it totally is. When talking to non-technical co-workers they always say it's too hard. What they mean is that it is so frustrating.
Ricky Garcia Man, I needed to hear this. I'm now starting to code and get frustrated easily (partly because I think I'm not smart). I'm glad it's something we all get.
My pleasure. I just talked to on of my friends, a seasoned C# developer. He says he feels the same way. I've been doing JS for about two years with a 5-month break in there. I feel like a noob so I'm going through the book Eloquent Javascript and learning and filling in the gaps again... I feel like a baby but I'm getting better. My next project for work is learning node.js to replace an old system of faxing. It's a constant battle between learning and doing.
MPJ you're awesome. I really enjoyed this video. As is so often the case, you seem to talk about something that is a current struggle for me. I've been talking about this a lot lately. Not exactly like this of course. More just the idea of not giving up or how to deal with the nag that there might not be a finish line or success in this current task/endeavor/whatever. Consider my interest piqued re the Grit book you mentioned. I will definitely have to check it out. Keep being awesome!
7 років тому
Good stuff! Recently I met Extreme Ownership book which is about Navy Seals' leadership method, and Jocko's podcast (on of the authors). They say perseverance is aggressive problem solving. Meaning finding the right solution as fast as possible. Meaning don't give up, find another solution, find the right solution, ask help, work like a team, make yourself better, etc. Perseverance and aggressive problem solving has some scientific background too, beside the book "Grit", check Carol Dweck's researches, TED talks and books. Worth to check these stuff.
I'm so excited about this series. I think the topics are super spot on, and I really like how you think and reflect about programming. There were so many things you said in this episode I can relate to. For example, the part when the frustration just keeps hitting me, I feel dumber and dumber. Also, the part about dealing with time estimation (I found that part funny because I really imagined myself trying to estimate some freaking thing, which I had no clue about and out of the blue made an unrealistic due, and again felt more and more frustrated).
To sum this talk, here are the main points that was all this about: * Perseverance - ability to withstand frustration. Or in other words, is certain level of tolerance to frustration. - Frustration is useful, and helps to save efforts and energy for more valuable tasks (in context of how brain works). But frustration predisposed to short-term benefits. But.. * Perseverance help to stay in a marathon longer. Programming is a marathon. Development application process is a marathon. NOT a sprint! * Talent is not that actually helps to make success, but the grit the one that does. About the grit talk: ua-cam.com/video/H14bBuluwB8/v-deo.html * Processes & Habits. Some of those that can help develop certain level of perseverance: - ability to lean in to the problem, step by step in methodological way until the problem will buckle - in order to manage your mood and energy, consistency matter. Overtime is possible, but can break you after some time. - don't skip launch - get a standing desk, don't sit around to much (now we know @mpjme is using standing desk when making this video) - get a walk - drink plenty of water - if you are down or sick, make sure to deal with that first instead of pushing the "get the shit done" - have a time when getting to office - know how to start quickly. Don't start from things that can easily distract you, for example watching emails. - ...find a system that works for you, that will make you persevere for a long time... Maybe read a book "How to solve it" 8 buckets for next series that was aggregated from twitter question: What do you think are critical traits in a programmer? Not to be super 10x or anything - just to feel good and function well proffesionally. 1) Curious 2) Humble 3) Empathy 4) Check your ego 5) Understanding context 6) Teaching 7) "Get shit done" (what the difference from Perseverance, idk... but lets see what wil lbe further :D) 8) Perseverance Feels like "ultimate solder". right? Having this, we, as developers, can do anything in the world. XD Wrote this for my self, no fanaticism. But writing down helps a lot to figure out.
Thank you for this video! It came just when I needed it. As a person getting into programming it does get very very frustrating when one minute it feels as if I am finally understanding then the next minute it feels as if I don't know anything. Looking forward to the next videos in this series!
I really, really like this channel. As a suggestion for future content, me personally I would like to hear more about how to advance in this field professionally. I recently quit my job as business developer as I wanted to start doing more technical work. Have been writing code as long as I remember and would call myself a pretty decent programmer, but have little to show for it. Just a guy who love to code and wants to do more of what I enjoy the most. Would be great to have a video about what one can do to start coding for a living and not just as a hobby. Take care!
Thanks MPJ, this is extremely helpful advice. I'm currently reading "How to solve it" - I'm finding I'm skipping over the geometry parts (the actual problems) but focusing more on the pedagogy and the process. Might need another two/three reads to get the math into my noggin.
Thank you for this video MPJ! I have just started my first junior programming position and I found myself nodding and laughing at how much I relate to what you are saying, especially with constantly facing problems of different types you actually don't know where to begin to solve. Your words of wisdom are a great for us starting as programmers. Along these lines, do you have any advice about how to approach giving timelines when your team needs to know how long a task will take? Thanks again for this video! Cheers :)
Nice satsang! :D I consider myself to have low intelligence, but my ability to persevere in this field (10+ years) has led me to identify myself as a developer (consequently, quite a bad one). I credit all my humble success in this field to perseverance. When frustration finally kicks in, I can detect the trait and use it to stop what I'm doing and try a different approach to the problem. I only wish I had the same perseverance I have for programming as I do for other, very important things, like learning the language of my host country.
I personally feel dumber and dumber the longer I work in programming. I'm not sure if it's that I'm actually getting dumber, or if my comparison corpus is just getting larger. Either way, I'll take code written by a dumb programmer any day. Simple, well-tested code is a lot better than clever code when it comes down to maintaining a product over time.
Noah Nobody LMAO... I am here laughing at you two, if only you met me, you'd know how smart you two were. It takes a long time for me to understand concepts and I have to go over the material at least 3 times. FML! At least I can take comfort in knowing my brain will try to sabotage me into thinking I'm a failure when I get frustrated. Knowing this, I can try to find a way to persevere. This video most likely saved my yet to begin programming career.
this types of videos are by far the best ones to me, i have to say i don't really care when mpj makes a video about a particular technology, the template lang video for example, there are no conclusions to be drawn, because there is no consensus and we will probably never have, is a waste of time imo
"Development is a marathon not a sprint." I agree; however, even in a marathon, you sprint the last bit before the finish line. The problem for us is that, unlike a real marathon, the "finish line" tends to move.
Hi MPJ, I love the way you explain things in simple terms. It'd be amazing if you could start screencats/code tutorials as in for example say 'Building a music streaming app with node and react'
thanks a lot. for this video and other big thanks for the recommendation. as well .this is the best channel that I subscribed to Looking forward to the rest of the habits
I'd add that part where you can't sleep and even dream about the problem and you manage to "solve" it there but maybe it's just an illusion and when you wake up, you can't remember what you did to fix it. Maybe it's just me.
as a relatively new developer, hearing that bug fix estimates won't become easier as I progress in my career and it's not a personal problem like I'm in fact a failure relieves my a bit, I will constantly pursue becoming a better developer but having this note in the back of my head will help me not becoming depresses every time I miscalculate an estimate
Please don't talk about 'bugs'. Bugs no longer exist since we do not work on vacuum tubes machines. The 'Defects' are internal to software development and are not introduced from an external agent. Your videos are great !
Kung Fu Hung-Su :( I was living in Seattle for 5 months and fell in love with the city. I'm back in Canada getting a degree in the hopes I'll one day work there.
hi mpj, first of all thank you for this video really helps to understand that i'm not the only one with those problems and thoughts. what do you think 'sprinters' can do in IT? trying to see bright side here) and/or how to break that hectic sprint cycle without feeling guilty for that i dont do enough(101%) to make this dream come true?
MPJ, if you had hit that morning of "having no desire to get up to work" (20:09), what was your remedy in that time? I can so much relate to this kind of wearing out. How did you eventually improve the lifestyle management approach: were you slowly but continuously fixing the damage (no more crazy hours), or have you undergone some radical changes (quitting or smth else)?
+Artem992 burnout can be caused by many factors, I suggest reading this article and checking your job against the list: www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/05/13/the-6-causes-of-professional-burnout-and-how-to-avoid-them/#2d7c05ad1dde
Angela Lee Duckworth is talking about the work of Carol Dweck. Here is her ted talk: www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve#t-500763
@funfunfunction some description of situation could be simplified. For example when you talked about "project description is vague" and all that near it in Processes & Habits section.
10:30 other sources "he who increases knowledge, increases pain" [King Solomon - Ecclesiastes 1:18] "low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is... also... high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
What about the other side of the spectrum? Where sometimes you run into an interesting problem that you can't readily figure out and can't seem to let it go. I've gotten myself in trouble a few times due to difficulty with breaking away from something because I want to know exactly what's happening and why.
I just got my first development job 2 months ago. This is incredibly helpful.
Congratulations! Good luck, and have fun. :-)
Congratz on the position.
"that answer would be very specific to me and my realities"
MPJ just became my favourite UA-camr of all time. . .
+eleanombre aww thank you ;)
+funfunfunction Really liking this types of videos! Keep it up!
You say "Talent is greatly overvalued" I couldnt agree more, i always try to talk about this as well. Ronnie the rocket osullivan (the mozart of snooker) is always called "genius and naturally talented" by media. He ALWAYS responds: "Its not about genius or talent, i have been chained to the snooker table practicing 8 hours per day since i was seven years old." Go grit and perseverance! See you later today maybe :) / Martin
love your music, do you program? I also agree that talent is a very small percentage of success
+Wintergatan haha, that's an awesome story and quote!
I remember my manager 3 years ago said "Oh we hired a graduate before you, who can do this much faster than you; I guess you are not the 10x programmer I am looking for."
I severely hate any words that are related to 10x, cowboy, ninja, and rockstar programmers from that point on.
I absolutely love this video. As someone who teaches people how to code, I see the learning curve on how to deal with frustration with every new group of students. What I have found to be useful is to acknowledge multiple times over the course of the program the fact that this frustration will exist and there are a ton of ways to deal with that frustration in a healthy way, i.e. walking (like you said), just getting some air, etc. That said, I'm going to send this to my students to watch. Awesome video! Thank you!
This is a great topic MPJ,
As an older generation of programmer coping with rapid growth of web development toolsets these days, perseverance is honestly the one compass in the storm that keeps me going. One thing I have learned in my years of doing this is to trust my intuition and follow my natural instincts to solving problems, and as you said lean hard into problems.
Your Monday Morning videos are a great pick me up!
This video couldn't have come at a better time for me. I've been running out of gas dealing with what I'd consider chaos-driven-development and having difficulty finding the motivation to do even the simplest dev tasks. The frustration train more than hit me, it's completely run me over and I don't have the energy to deal with all the bullshit, unfortunately I've been tuning out and finding distractions almost everywhere.
Thanks for the reminder to persevere! Your videos are great, keep it up!
Big Thanks, MPJ! Found myself consciously thinking about being perseverant today. This several hours in working flow considerably different from my usual experience - I am more productive and happier after all!
What you said about talant and hitting the wall harder because it's about your identity was nothing short of genius. I've battled this problem all my life but never been able to express it. You nailed it! And now I understand. Thank you!
You absolutely nailed this one, Mattias. 5:52 - being faced with problems you don't know how to solve, unknown time to solution, whether it's possible at all... these have absolutely been challenges for me as my development skill and scale of projects have both increased over time. (It really is a daily f'ing thing!) And 6:59, on bugs: reproducability, getting useful data from users, tracing to the root cause... also daily life. Including "some BS in another system"! And so forth.
13:20 particularly resonates, too - I think undervaluing our own talent is built right in to being a developer. Your insight that it becomes a way to shift blame is revealing... I could go on, but this comment might get way too long. I'm a big fan - keep making great content! ^JMJ (opinions my own and not those of my company as named above, etc)
Thanks for such an amazing talk. My father whom is also a very talented engineer told me how been relentless and persevering to solve the problem is such a critical trait for a software developer/engineer and your analysis on success driven values and traits. This video was released at the time that I had an interview and will start my first job as a budding Full Stack Software Engineer. I always treat the learning mentality as a long-term commitment to my growth. Awesome video and I always look forward to your vids. Keep up the good work
+George Okello thanks George, say hi to your dad for me, he seems like one of the good ones.
You have rightly summarized the qualities that would make a developer lead a life of balance, fulfillment and growth. Keep going and make these great videos.
Very good video. Grit is one of the main things I'm trying to teach my young children. Don't give up, stand in the problem and stare it down. Give it some time to sink in because as you analyze it and make attempts at it you learn more about the problem. This is what eventually leads to solving it It is the slow and steady progress against the things we don't know. Problem solving is learning, and you have to be ok with not knowing very much as a percentage of things you could possibly know in the whole universe.
I really liked your illustration of how when you learn something in the programming field you realize that there is even more that you don't know. And as a full stack developer this can be really daunting sometimes. You can only know so many things super deep and that only comes after working with a technology or paradigm for a long enough time.
Keep up the great work, I love your videos. It inspires me to consider carving out the time to teach others in some format. I've always loved sharing my knowledge with others, but the last few years have found myself so bogged down in my day to day that I haven't had the chance to be as involved as I like. :)
Happy Monday!
Thanks for your kind words, I definitely recommend carving out time for some kind of teaching to your schedule, it's extremely rewarding (and also happens to be an extremely effective way of learning, too)
You really know that you understand something when you can teach it. It was always fun to teach others and have them point out some blind spots in my knowledge or assumptions that something just works a certain way. Definitely need to find a way back into that.
one of my professors said that, teaching is the best form of learning. and thats why he does it
the MOST important habit for anything
mpj, thank you very much for this video and I look forward to the rest of the series. For the last few years I've been working to become a developer at our company, and I'm finally writing plugins, customizations, and can have some input on the product itself. It's been great but emotionally draining for many of the reasons you spoke of here... it's so hard to be confident in what you are learning, persevering, and keeping emotion & ego in check. I really appreciate you talking about all this because... how often do we really. Its nice to know I'm not alone, I will preservere!
i am always amazed at the level of insight you express about programmers and people in general. it makes me think.
This is just an amazing video. Coming from a social sciences background, and being conditioned by 17 years of school that one must know the right answer to a question/problem straight away when asked, it took me quite a while to internalize the fact that such a scenario is completely unrealistic when writing code. Also, your statement that the more you learn, the more you realize how many more things there are left to learn really resonated with me.
I'm curious about the book you recommend at the end, "How to Solve It". Can you give any more details about it? Thanks!
I felt this video in my skin this weekend.
I started to learn Mobile Development with Cordova. But I couldn't install the Android SDK in my machine.
3 days! 3 entire days I got to solve this problem. I got myself very frustrated, but I have to learn, because my boss can give a new opportunity in my job.
And after a lot of 'walks' and 'curse the computer', I was able to solve the problem.
I started learning C# and Unity 3 weeks ago. First two weeks I was just looking through documentation, watching different tutorials on unity, doing c# course on Microsoft Virtual Academy and 3rd week I started my own little project (classic pong game clone). I've hit so many walls when developing something for the first time by myself but google/stack overflow helped me a lot. But perseverance was the key; I would produce a bug in my game flow and I would spend 4-5 hours just to wrap my head around it and debug the shit out of it and I would finally fix it. It felt so satisfying. I'm satisfied with my progress so far and I'll just keep doing this again and again while increasing the difficulty of my projects and I think I'll learn a lot! Perseverance is the key indeed. :)
I love your videos where you talk about psychological questions, or anything that has to do more with human traits and characteristics than programming, Like "Mission Clarity...", "Staying Productive...". And when you recommend books. I love your channel and I think it should have way more subscribers. I'll do my contribution spreading the word :)
Hi, I am a junior front end developer just started my job 6 months ago, I found this video beneficial, it is relevant to what I am going through so far, and will try out your suggestions. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Love your talks, and insights. Over the last months I've come to realize how often you say 'Just'. Your Scandinavian pronunciation of the 'J' beginning is to feel like tiny darts being poked in my ears :-)
As a new software developer listening to this has been great, putting all my insecurities into perspective, looking forward to next instalments, thanks mpj
Thanks so much for posting, this video was super helpful and uplifting. I find myself faced with a lot of the same issues as a researcher in graduate school. While the advice you gave was directly useful for programming, which I do a lot of, it was also more generally useful in thinking about how to manage productivity and attitude about hard problems in all aspects of my work. Thanks for the great video!
Excellent video!
I think that the general idea that you talked about is to make small victories (like narrow down the problem). That's a great way to not fell shitty through the day.
Keep with the excellent work!
Until next Monday
Great, great video. Thanks a lot for sharing our opionions. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
This was very timely for me. Just the other day I was having doubts about how realistic learning ML is for myself, being that I am "not great at math".
I have have worked through similar doubts in the past, or else I wouldn't be a developer, but it helps to find some extra external support too :)
You nailed one of the most key things people leave out about work in general, and I really want to commend you on that:
Part of work is not working.
I've worked for start ups before where they put a lot of emphasis on staying late and "always be coding" and that is...not sustainable. And it's not productive either. If you're always working, you're less efficient and your brain needs breaks. That's why some companies not in the US have 6 or 7 hour work days rather than 8 and found that those places are as productive, if not more productive.
We work to live, not live to work.
Your brain needs rest.
Good call.
Great video, as a dev and a marathon runner, I agree, development is not a sprint. When I was younger I had some talent (not a lot, but some :P ) and when I started working on bigger systems the frustration bomb hit me hard. Grit, perseverance, and processes helped me grow and become a half decent dev. Like a marathon there is going to be some brutal sections, steep hills, the last 7km is always a struggle. Working smart not hard isn't a real thing, when it comes down to it, hard work is going to be a necessity to get where you want to be, working smart when you can will take some pressure off.
You often recommend books. Some I have bought (e.g. The Mythical Man-Month), others I have sadly forgotten about. Do you have an aggregated list of books you recommend?
That is a very good idea. He could put the list in a repository, so we can get a notification anytime it is updated.
Or a list on goodreads
This is a good idea, I'll see what I can do!
Any update on this?
The power of habit book that was mentioned in one video was so good! All for some more suggestions
"Programming is a marathon, not a sprint."
I see what you did there, sir! 😏
agile is the worst
I get why you say that.
Oh man, thanks for this. There's so much mental energy that goes into developing (or just finding a JOB!) It's easy to quit and give up, so thanks for making this video. Love the mix of programming + psych
Wish I saw this video 10 years ago!
I'm seeing this 10 yrs ago.
It's so true! When I first started I would get so frustrated and exhausted. Sometimes I could only do 20 minutes, take a break, and try again after a few hours or the next day. Fast forward 2 years later and I can focus much longer. It's hard to recognize it as a skill but it totally is. When talking to non-technical co-workers they always say it's too hard. What they mean is that it is so frustrating.
Ricky Garcia Man, I needed to hear this. I'm now starting to code and get frustrated easily (partly because I think I'm not smart). I'm glad it's something we all get.
My pleasure. I just talked to on of my friends, a seasoned C# developer. He says he feels the same way. I've been doing JS for about two years with a 5-month break in there. I feel like a noob so I'm going through the book Eloquent Javascript and learning and filling in the gaps again... I feel like a baby but I'm getting better.
My next project for work is learning node.js to replace an old system of faxing. It's a constant battle between learning and doing.
Great video. #8 should be perseverance combined with problem solving skills. Only perseverance will just lead to more frustration.
MPJ you're awesome. I really enjoyed this video. As is so often the case, you seem to talk about something that is a current struggle for me. I've been talking about this a lot lately. Not exactly like this of course. More just the idea of not giving up or how to deal with the nag that there might not be a finish line or success in this current task/endeavor/whatever.
Consider my interest piqued re the Grit book you mentioned. I will definitely have to check it out.
Keep being awesome!
Good stuff! Recently I met Extreme Ownership book which is about Navy Seals' leadership method, and Jocko's podcast (on of the authors). They say perseverance is aggressive problem solving. Meaning finding the right solution as fast as possible. Meaning don't give up, find another solution, find the right solution, ask help, work like a team, make yourself better, etc. Perseverance and aggressive problem solving has some scientific background too, beside the book "Grit", check Carol Dweck's researches, TED talks and books. Worth to check these stuff.
I'm so excited about this series. I think the topics are super spot on, and I really like how you think and reflect about programming. There were so many things you said in this episode I can relate to. For example, the part when the frustration just keeps hitting me, I feel dumber and dumber. Also, the part about dealing with time estimation (I found that part funny because I really imagined myself trying to estimate some freaking thing, which I had no clue about and out of the blue made an unrealistic due, and again felt more and more frustrated).
MPJ if you ever set up a Patreon channel I'll support you man. Just awesome content. Thanks for sharing all the things!
To sum this talk, here are the main points that was all this about:
* Perseverance - ability to withstand frustration. Or in other words, is certain level of tolerance to frustration.
- Frustration is useful, and helps to save efforts and energy for more valuable tasks (in context of how brain works). But frustration predisposed to short-term benefits. But..
* Perseverance help to stay in a marathon longer. Programming is a marathon. Development application process is a marathon. NOT a sprint!
* Talent is not that actually helps to make success, but the grit the one that does. About the grit talk: ua-cam.com/video/H14bBuluwB8/v-deo.html
* Processes & Habits. Some of those that can help develop certain level of perseverance:
- ability to lean in to the problem, step by step in methodological way until the problem will buckle
- in order to manage your mood and energy, consistency matter. Overtime is possible, but can break you after some time.
- don't skip launch
- get a standing desk, don't sit around to much (now we know @mpjme is using standing desk when making this video)
- get a walk
- drink plenty of water
- if you are down or sick, make sure to deal with that first instead of pushing the "get the shit done"
- have a time when getting to office
- know how to start quickly. Don't start from things that can easily distract you, for example watching emails.
- ...find a system that works for you, that will make you persevere for a long time... Maybe read a book "How to solve it"
8 buckets for next series that was aggregated from twitter question:
What do you think are critical traits in a programmer? Not to be super 10x or anything - just to feel good and function well proffesionally.
1) Curious
2) Humble
3) Empathy
4) Check your ego
5) Understanding context
6) Teaching
7) "Get shit done" (what the difference from Perseverance, idk... but lets see what wil lbe further :D)
8) Perseverance
Feels like "ultimate solder". right? Having this, we, as developers, can do anything in the world. XD
Wrote this for my self, no fanaticism. But writing down helps a lot to figure out.
Thank you for this video! It came just when I needed it. As a person getting into programming it does get very very frustrating when one minute it feels as if I am finally understanding then the next minute it feels as if I don't know anything. Looking forward to the next videos in this series!
Great talk to start the week with Matthias, thank you.
I really, really like this channel. As a suggestion for future content, me personally I would like to hear more about how to advance in this field professionally. I recently quit my job as business developer as I wanted to start doing more technical work. Have been writing code as long as I remember and would call myself a pretty decent programmer, but have little to show for it. Just a guy who love to code and wants to do more of what I enjoy the most. Would be great to have a video about what one can do to start coding for a living and not just as a hobby. Take care!
Thanks MPJ, this is extremely helpful advice. I'm currently reading "How to solve it" - I'm finding I'm skipping over the geometry parts (the actual problems) but focusing more on the pedagogy and the process. Might need another two/three reads to get the math into my noggin.
Why im I only seeing this now. I would have done alot of things differently. You just became my favorite youtuber!! Subscribed.
excellent talk and subject - this has really help clarify important topics at work for me - thanks mpj
Thank you for this video MPJ! I have just started my first junior programming position and I found myself nodding and laughing at how much I relate to what you are saying, especially with constantly facing problems of different types you actually don't know where to begin to solve. Your words of wisdom are a great for us starting as programmers. Along these lines, do you have any advice about how to approach giving timelines when your team needs to know how long a task will take? Thanks again for this video! Cheers :)
This is a GREAT question that deserves an entire video, I think. I've added it to the ideas.
Mpj you say things sometimes that just make me feel like I'm doing things right. I do it exactly the same way that you describe it.
Thank you.
Nice satsang! :D
I consider myself to have low intelligence, but my ability to persevere in this field (10+ years) has led me to identify myself as a developer (consequently, quite a bad one). I credit all my humble success in this field to perseverance.
When frustration finally kicks in, I can detect the trait and use it to stop what I'm doing and try a different approach to the problem. I only wish I had the same perseverance I have for programming as I do for other, very important things, like learning the language of my host country.
I personally feel dumber and dumber the longer I work in programming. I'm not sure if it's that I'm actually getting dumber, or if my comparison corpus is just getting larger. Either way, I'll take code written by a dumb programmer any day. Simple, well-tested code is a lot better than clever code when it comes down to maintaining a product over time.
Noah Nobody LMAO... I am here laughing at you two, if only you met me, you'd know how smart you two were. It takes a long time for me to understand concepts and I have to go over the material at least 3 times. FML! At least I can take comfort in knowing my brain will try to sabotage me into thinking I'm a failure when I get frustrated. Knowing this, I can try to find a way to persevere. This video most likely saved my yet to begin programming career.
Brilliant video. My dev career in a nutshell haha. Can't wait to see next episodes. Thanks! thumbs up
Awesome video as always! No question as to why you are our entire team's favorite programming youtuber - Keep it up MPJ
Love to open the morning with you!!! Keep your good work! you give me motivation and a good way to think about solving problems!! LOVE YOU!!!
Damn dude,I love your videos, they expose the reality of programming in such a personal way, so truly and clear.
this is nice, i really need something like this in my current situation
Thanks MPJ. Great work as always. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
this types of videos are by far the best ones to me, i have to say i don't really care when mpj makes a video about a particular technology, the template lang video for example, there are no conclusions to be drawn, because there is no consensus and we will probably never have, is a waste of time imo
"Development is a marathon not a sprint." I agree; however, even in a marathon, you sprint the last bit before the finish line. The problem for us is that, unlike a real marathon, the "finish line" tends to move.
"Hard work beats talent when talent won't work hard."
I loved it man! this is easy one of my favorite videos, thanks a lot for your time and opinions keep up doing it great!.
Really enjoyed this video. Keep it up mpj. Looking forward for the rest of the series !
Pure awesomeness! Such a great video!
Thanks, man.
Hi MPJ, I love the way you explain things in simple terms. It'd be amazing if you could start screencats/code tutorials as in for example say 'Building a music streaming app with node and react'
thanks a lot.
for this video and other big thanks for the recommendation. as well
.this is the best channel that I subscribed to
Looking forward to the rest of the habits
mpj is becoming psychologist
I'd add that part where you can't sleep and even dream about the problem and you manage to "solve" it there but maybe it's just an illusion and when you wake up, you can't remember what you did to fix it. Maybe it's just me.
This is so good!! Looking forward to the rest of the series. 👍
This was amamamazing! Really looking forward to watching this series of awesomeness.
I agree that having all the technical skills is not just enough to become a great developer
Great video, thank you so much, really needed it!
Looking forward to the next episode in this series.
as a relatively new developer, hearing that bug fix estimates won't become easier as I progress in my career and it's not a personal problem like I'm in fact a failure relieves my a bit, I will constantly pursue becoming a better developer but having this note in the back of my head will help me not becoming depresses every time I miscalculate an estimate
"Closing the Window, because it's making a lot of noise". I always thought of you as a Mac person :(
"Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone is today." - Jordan B. Peterson
I am so #1 about this series!
I like these types of videos and musings a lot
Thanks for sharing! Love your videos!!
Very good video! Waiting for the next episodes :)
Thank you so much for this video, I needed it!
I dig the new motion graphics!
You had me at yust.
Please don't talk about 'bugs'. Bugs no longer exist
since we do not work on vacuum tubes machines. The 'Defects' are
internal to software development and are not introduced from an external
agent. Your videos are great !
much better position setup with this episode
Thank you @mpjme.. you channel is my school :D
Great vid, wish you put out content more often that once a week :)
Really Great words! Thank u!
This episode really reminds me to duning kruger effect - you should look that up, a good wiki read
Thanks for the awesome videos as always :)
Whelp, now I'm not going to sleep (1:10am here in Seattle!)
Kung Fu Hung-Su :( I was living in Seattle for 5 months and fell in love with the city. I'm back in Canada getting a degree in the hopes I'll one day work there.
this is insightful, thank you
hi mpj, first of all thank you for this video really helps to understand that i'm not the only one with those problems and thoughts. what do you think 'sprinters' can do in IT? trying to see bright side here) and/or how to break that hectic sprint cycle without feeling guilty for that i dont do enough(101%) to make this dream come true?
so good thank you so much for the advise I really needed this video!
i've Yeost ;-) watched one of the most useful pieces of advice for developers ever! and 4 life... really
MPJ, if you had hit that morning of "having no desire to get up to work" (20:09), what was your remedy in that time?
I can so much relate to this kind of wearing out.
How did you eventually improve the lifestyle management approach:
were you slowly but continuously fixing the damage (no more crazy hours),
or have you undergone some radical changes (quitting or smth else)?
+Artem992 burnout can be caused by many factors, I suggest reading this article and checking your job against the list: www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/05/13/the-6-causes-of-professional-burnout-and-how-to-avoid-them/#2d7c05ad1dde
Angela Lee Duckworth is talking about the work of Carol Dweck. Here is her ted talk:
www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve#t-500763
Just brillant, Captai8n Fun Sparrow :)
Great analysis.
@funfunfunction some description of situation could be simplified. For example when you talked about "project description is vague" and all that near it in Processes & Habits section.
Your videos are addicting. :)
As always, your videos are impeccable. May i ask what is the music you use the first 30 seconds? thanks a lot!
10:30 other sources
"he who increases knowledge, increases pain" [King Solomon - Ecclesiastes 1:18]
"low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is... also... high-ability individuals may underestimate their relative competence" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
What about the other side of the spectrum? Where sometimes you run into an interesting problem that you can't readily figure out and can't seem to let it go. I've gotten myself in trouble a few times due to difficulty with breaking away from something because I want to know exactly what's happening and why.