Thread by @polotek

I'm gonna try to say this in a way that doesn't sound blamey, but I may fail at it. A lot of us have this experience talking to people who are learning. We say "you should learn fundamentals". And the responses we get are often ones of frustration and impatience.

https://twitter.com/kvlly/status/1327401604664991751

I'm not dismissing those feelings. I think I understand a lot about where they come from. But I would like to see the conversation about combatting that and helping the community to be open to this kind of advice. There is no shortcut to becoming more confident in your skills.

I'm also wondering if there's another lesson here though. Maybe there's no shortcut that prevents people from having to learn this lesson for themselves. All of the cultural baggage around "learn to code" is giving people the wrong message about they're getting into.

It's also important to set some context here. Learning what's practical for you to get your job done (or get a job in the first place) is the right thing to do. What I'm talking about is when people ask "how do I get better at this?" or "when does it become easier?"

I did this poll a while back trying to get a sense for what the different motivations were for people who are trying to learn. Another reason that context matters is that not everybody is trying to accomplish the same things.

https://twitter.com/polotek/status/1170173923788378113?s=20

For the record, I'm mostly interested in connecting with that second group. People who are trying to build a career in tech. Those are the people who should be motivated to dig into fundamentals. Other groups should absolutely be looking for more practical shortcuts.

It's also really okay to start out in the first group, where you're just trying to get a good-paying job, and then grow towards being more career-oriented. In fact, that's the route I would recommend. Especially for people who didn't go through more traditional education paths.

The important point here is that you can get pretty far without learning fundamentals. But at some point, it can become career limiting. Without building a strong base to build from, your growth can start to plateau. Learning new things should get *easier* over time.