Just watching someone doing the real thing is one of the most prominent strategies to avoid doing the real thing.

It is not enough to watch someone very skilled do the real thing. You have to imitate them: Reading a lot of great novels will not make you a better writer. Instead write a story in the style of any writer you admire and you will learn a lot while still doing the real thing. The same is true for almost any art you want learn.

When asked about how to be a good writer, Terry Pratchett offered tips on boxing:

“A good diet is essential, of course, as is a daily regime of exercise. Pay attention to your footwork, it will often get you into trouble. Go down to the gym every day – every day of your life that finds you waking up capable of standing. Take every opportunity to watch a good professional fight. In fact watch as many bouts as you can, because you can even learn something from the fighters who get it wrong. Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do. And don’t forget the diet and the exercise and the roadwork.

Got it? Well, becoming a writer is basically exactly the same thing, except that it isn’t about boxing.”

"AND", not "OR".

IOW, possibly necessary, definitely insufficient condition.

It's irrelevant whether it's common to use watching to avoid doing. One should absolutely watch, read, listen, etc -- in parallel to the doing.

I play a lot of hearthstone, and I’m quite good at it, but to remain good at it, I absolutely do have to spent a fair bit of time watching streamers and reading strategy articles. There’s a lot to know about the game and you absolutely cannot get everything you need to be a top player from only playing. Even the top professional players spend a lot of time in coaching sessions with their peers or just watching streams.

Our brains have mirror neurons[1] that allow us to learn by watching.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

Mirror neuron mythos is ridiculous. They're just normal neurons, they just happen to fire in response to externally observed behaviour as well as personal behaviour.

They aren't magic, they can't actually mirror what's going on in another person's head or give you a high-resolution idea of how their brain works. They aren't even that good at mimicry unless you already have a pretty high-resolution understanding of what you're trying to improve. You can't learn to juggle by watching people juggle. You can't learn to play piano by watching people play piano. You might be able to improve those skills if you already have them and watch someone who's better, but it's limited and whether that's even osmotic mirror neuron activity is controversial.

JUST watching, yes. However, I really am inspired when watching my VERY competent co-worker. I pick up on little habits, and have a lot of 'Oh, cool!' moments. It's actually pretty cool because it's getting to the point where sometimes he will actually say 'Oh, cool!' about something he sees me do :-)

Very true. I don't mean this as a strategy for procrastination, but rather as a strategy for finding patterns/modes of thought that would otherwise have been difficult for you to discover on your own from first principles.

It is very important to test out first hand by "doing the real thing" the ideas you discover by watching skilled people.

I think you have to watch someone writing a great novel or writing good code. Not just read it.

I believe that just reading without understanding the thought process only helps a little.

Recent practical example: I had a lot of trouble picking which photographs out of 20-100 of a subject to use. Enough were sharp, well-composed, and properly exposed to make it near impossible to pick.

I've been watching James Popsys' videos[1] lately. He doesn't take the greatest photos in the world from a technical standpoint, but there's a theme that runs through most of his videos and pictures: tell a story.

It's a lot easier to pick the best photos out of a bunch of technically decent photos when "best" is well-defined. And it turns out fit in a story about the subject is a solid criteria for best.

When I got my camera, I got this photo of a squirrel: https://kyefox.com/2020/05/20/squirrel-surprise/

It's fine. Not bad, not great.

Then, after thinking about that advice, I decided to tell a story: https://kyefox.com/2020/06/20/eastern-gray-squirrels-at-play...

They're all worse in technical terms than that one photo, but they're better because they fit into a story.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6WYZrzBuNQnz_2F4EqjhDQ

"I'll be invisible if I stay perfectly still" is a great photograph. Actually, that picture (with the caption) stands by itself - it tells its own story.

Those are great pictures!

Chess is an interesting example. If you want to get good at blitz, playing 1min games over and over is a terrible way to do it in my experience. Playing 3hr games and studying theory is painful and annoying yet way more useful for real improvement. I think the same concept applies to many things - learning an instrument is another example. Performing a piano piece at full speed over and over is fun, but focusing exclusively on the hard parts one hand at a time slowly is far more useful.

Actually chess is a pretty good counterexample, speaking as a guy who 'did the real thing' and just started playing chess.

I ended up with a ranking of about 1600, give or take a hundred points.

The thing was, that was my ceiling: I wasn't going to advance beyond that. Whatever I could've figured out on the fly was built into my ranking.

So, to advance, I would've needed to, flatly, learn: put down the pieces and pick up a book.

Eventually, I think you reach a point where you have to do that, if you want to get better. "Doing the thing" is great for getting you out of the 'rank amateur' stage, but it can be a hindrance further down the line.

This is excellent advice for everybody. Well said zoomlings.

I remember reading about forge work and thinking it would be fun. I remember playing on a forge and sweating pants and burning. I remember reading about advanced techniques and wasting a lot of iron and fuel. And I remember watching a master bend iron cleverly, and heat it minimally, achieving beautiful affect. Sometimes you don't need a hammer, you need practiced wit.

Some call these folk teachers, or professors, or craftmasters, or what have you. The best are better than artists, they're scientists. Alan Kay is a great example. So is Knuth. Check out John Baez. I was lucky enough to meet Des MacHale. He could tell a joke ambidextrously in chalk and you'd split your sides laughing while learning mathematical context. He were that good he were better.

Learning from others is faster than learning on one's own but we yield our sense of direction. Which is why innocent play is so important.

Now get back to studying Jacob Lurie and reformulate, reformulate, reformulate!

> Want to get better at programming? Write a lot of programs. Yes. But also read a lot of high quality code written by others.

Well, do this in moderation, as reading "high quality code" can lead to a premature focus on code-quality.

Most "high quality code" is the result of many iterations of ideas and use-cases. And trying to emulate that style can be counter-productive in many cases.

I find going back in the history of the code-base helps you see how simple the project used to be, which is helpful when learning to code.

> reading "high quality code" can lead to a premature focus on code-quality

I don't think so. There's a difference between a skilled software developer making tradeoffs under time pressure, and someone who doesn't know what good code even looks like.

If you aren't capable of writing good code, you aren't qualified to make the right tradeoff.

> "If you aren't capable of writing good code, you aren't qualified to make the right tradeoff."

So you should probably limit the amount of "good code" you read when you're learning something right?

Or else (as you say) you won't be able to understand why it's good and what trade-off's it will cause...

I guess my main point is, don't dive into the linux kernel if you're learning C, as you'll learn optimisation strategies that probably aren't useful in your context and will only slow you down...

> So you should probably limit the amount of "good code" you read when you're learning something right?

Why? If you're learning a dance, you try to copy the teacher, not other students. You don't need to study the mistakes of others, you are sure to make plenty of your own.

> don't dive into the linux kernel if you're learning C, as you'll learn optimisation strategies that probably aren't useful in your context

Unless you're learning C for the purpose of kernel programming, sure. That's not really the same question.

And if you're a beginner, what you think is high-quality code is probably just wrong. You don't have the experience to differentiate. Over-abstracted code that is extremely visually clean at each of its 8 levels of indirection and is so perfectly cohesive that any modification would destroy the entire artwork looks great to most beginners.

Agreed, I'd replace that with "watch good programmers program", or even "pair program with great programmers" if that's an option.

The difficulty of the article and of your example is active vs passive learning - watching and reading people with more experience is important, and I guess the spirit of the article is to do that actively without procrastinating - real learning - watch and make notes rather than just relax and passively watch/read.

However, the part not touched on is that things you do passively do build up knowledge too - and it's not an exertion like active learning is. Absentmindedly watching Chess streams when relaxing is good to call out as not an intentional active learning experience, but as long as you're treating it as relaxing it's the kind of thing that is fuel for shower thoughts and can refuel capacity for active learning. As the article says, the "real thing" is hard and tiring, and doing "fake things" can add depth to understanding as well as recuperate for the next struggle. Being mindful and aware of what you're doing and pushing yourself to be doing the real thing when possible is my takeaway from the article.

Are there any celebrity programmers streaming? Would be interesting to watch Jeff Dean, Fabrice Bellard, or Donald Knuth code.

Truly watching others is the most natural way to learn. It applies to all aspects of life. I’ve often felt school, while important, was ill preparing people for actual jobs. Shadowing people is immensely helpful and something my school forced me to do and I was grateful for.

What did you study? (And, if you don't mind sharing, where?) That is an extremely rare position for educational bodies to take.

"The increased accessibility of this kind of content is one of the greatest achievements of the internet."

Completely agree...it's vast and largely free. I am grateful to live in such an unprecedented era of access to knowledge, know how, and instruction.

I am someone who wants to get better / generally back into Chess

Who/what should I watch? Where can I find good videos/analysis?

How strong are you?

The St. Louis Chess Club has a great collection of Chess lectures at various levels: https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub

I also like Agadmator's YouTube channel - he analyzes famous games as well as games from current tournaments and such: https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR

I also like chesstempo for puzzles: https://chesstempo.com/

I'm not very strong, though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Lichess is a superb website which combines online tournaments, game studies and tactics. It is all open source too. A great example of people coming together to create something great.

Is there any way to know which videos are good for which levels on the St. Louis Chess Club channel?

They have playlists for different levels of player:

1. Kids' Beginner - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7kkP5en4Qo&list=PLVWaFpMwta...

2. Beginner - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8XxkotWVkY&list=PLVWaFpMwta...

3. Intermediate - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym8KgIfeMtE&list=PLVWaFpMwta...

4. Advanced - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_g5Wyb57xQ&list=PLVWaFpMwta...