raganwald
(This is a snapshot of my old weblog. New posts and selected republished essays can be found at raganwald.com.)

Wednesday, April 23, 2008
  Good sense


Good sense is the most equitably distributed of all things because no matter how much or little a person has, everyone feels so abundantly provided with good sense that he feels no desire for more than he already possesses.
—René Descartes, via David Weiss’ excellent essay, Metacognitive Miscalibration

I regularly feel like I don’t know anything. I have been working as a software developer for around 8.5 years and I feel like a green newbie who just came out of University. The internet serves as the greatest asset to my professional life but also the greatest ego bruiser I have ever known.
—Bill, A Confessional

Experience can be a handicap… At forty-two (or three!), it's easy to think you know things. You’re at incredible risk of thinking you know things when you’ve achieved some measure of success, no matter how modest. You become “unconsciously incompetent.” You don’t know, but you don’t know you don’t know.
—I’m not young enough to know everything
  10:23 AM

Comments on “Good sense”:
I just read Bill's confessional article and I can really relate to what he's talking about.

Even though I've been programming for ages now, I still feel like a complete noob.
I think it's fantastic that a lot of programmers and people I admire can share their experiences and insight on the web.

So.. I guess I'd like to say, Thanks Reg. :)
# posted by Blogger Dennis Hotson : 10:55 PM
 




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Reg Braithwaite


Recent Writing
Homoiconic Technical Writing / raganwald.posterous.com

Books
What I‘ve Learned From Failure / Kestrels, Quirky Birds, and Hopeless Egocentricity

Share
rewrite_rails / andand / unfold.rb / string_to_proc.rb / dsl_and_let.rb / comprehension.rb / lazy_lists.rb

Beauty
IS-STRICTLY-EQUIVALENT-TO-A / Spaghetti-Western Coding / Golf is a good program spoiled / Programming conventions as signals / Not all functions should be object methods

The Not So Big Software Design / Writing programs for people to read / Why Why Functional Programming Matters Matters / But Y would I want to do a thing like this?

Work
The single most important thing you must do to improve your programming career / The Naïve Approach to Hiring People / No Disrespect / Take control of your interview / Three tips for getting a job through a recruiter / My favourite interview question

Management
Exception Handling in Software Development / What if powerful languages and idioms only work for small teams? / Bricks / Which theory fits the evidence? / Still failing, still learning / What I’ve learned from failure

Notation
The unary ampersand in Ruby / (1..100).inject(&:+) / The challenge of teaching yourself a programming language / The significance of the meta-circular interpreter / Block-Structured Javascript / Haskell, Ruby and Infinity / Closures and Higher-Order Functions

Opinion
Why Apple is more expensive than Amazon / Why we are the biggest obstacles to our own growth / Is software the documentation of business process mistakes? / We have lost control of the apparatus / What I’ve Learned From Sales I, II, III

Whimsey
The Narcissism of Small Code Differences / Billy Martin’s Technique for Managing his Manager / Three stories about The Tao / Programming Language Stories / Why You Need a Degree to Work For BigCo

History
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