Re:Ask HN: What advice would you give to a 20 year old?
by muzani on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @11:54PM
(#26338785)
Remain in beginner's mind. Assume you know nothing each time you are faced with a new task. Of course, you do know something, and this latent knowledge means it's easier to pick it up. But there should be no categorization like "this is a bad code smell" or "this is the best way to do it".
This is especially important as a 20 year old programmer, where you learn a lot of good practices, which don't apply for some situations or have unseen costs. For example, in many situations, a O(n^2) solution might be as effective as a O(n) solution, especially when n is very small and O(n^2) might cost too much overhead. Or say, hosting on a CDN. Make it a habit to ask yourself each time, do I really need this?
You should still learn best practices wherever possible, but assess whether they're applicable.
This is especially important as a 20 year old programmer, where you learn a lot of good practices, which don't apply for some situations or have unseen costs. For example, in many situations, a O(n^2) solution might be as effective as a O(n) solution, especially when n is very small and O(n^2) might cost too much overhead. Or say, hosting on a CDN. Make it a habit to ask yourself each time, do I really need this?
You should still learn best practices wherever possible, but assess whether they're applicable.