esmevane, sorry
Spent much of yesterday and today writing an at length explainer of a thing I proposed last week. To me it seemed simple, to everyone else it seemed alarmingly complicated. The truth is probably in the middle, right?
So I wrote up my thinking, literal code style, with tests, and now it seems even simpler. But I absolutely found some holes in my assumptions that didn’t show up until I needed to explain them with working code. And I did get rid of some complexity, all because I explained myself.
esmevane, sorry
And now I’m thinking about it a lot. It seemed slower to me but was it? The code is there. It works. I argue for a certain shape of it. If I walked outside and spontaneously combusted, anyone could pick it up now and decide what they want to do with it. The idea moves on and if it comes into play, cool. If not, it’s still there as reference later.
esmevane, sorry
I keep hearing that internal journals and blogs are great for a bunch of reasons, but those are usually related to “sharing culture”, I guess. Which is understandable but not appealing to me.
Or “educating one another” I guess, but that feels weird to me too. I feel a lot of doubt about being an authority on things. I goof up constantly, I can be incoherent. Why listen to me about anything?
This is more “showing my work”, and I think that’s clicking for me on a deeper level.
jefframnani
@ironchamber we acquire and then carry along a lot of domain and institutional knowledge. It’s easy to take that for granted
Someone teaches me X, then once I learn it I immediately turn around and think to myself, “Oh, everyone probably knows this. I was just the last person who had to learn this.”
Turns out that isn’t true for everyone we work with or the people who arrive after we did. 🙂
esmevane, sorry
@jefframnani You're fully right, and I totally think about how everyone is always learning something new (and the rest is kind of mostly random circumstance).
Somehow when it comes to me doing the explaining part of that, it gets easier if I think about it as "here's me trying to do something and explaining myself as I go", than "here's something I know, let me show you". Like I wonder if I'm wrong or just realizing obvious stuff.
Some of that is me being hard on myself but still.
esmevane, sorry
@jefframnani lol busted! And thanks. I appreciate that
I guess it’s mostly about finally finding a tone for these things that doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable. I’m comfy with TIL and exploring out loud, maybe because then if I’m wrong it’s a new TIL or potential thing to explore. Vs, you know, a goof or a bad explanation.
jefframnani
@ironchamber Is this is a textbook example of imposter syndrome? Asking for a friend. 😅
I’ve worked with you and know you’re smart and have a lot to teach other people.
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