I Have No Talent

http://railstips.org/blog/archives/2010/01/12/i-have-no-talent/

by jnunemaker • 17 years ago

334 74 17 years ago

railstips.org

oliveoil• 17 years ago

Then your talent is the ability to work hard.

jnunemaker3• 17 years ago

Touché.

praptak• 17 years ago

> Then your talent is the ability to work hard.

That's not necessarily a talent. You can get it from practice.

codexon3• 17 years ago

Can you get better by practicing? Sure.

But is this enough to put you on the same level as people who naturally enjoy doing it? I don't think so.

There's a reason for the saying "you either like it or you don't". Forcing yourself to like something you naturally dislike (such as doing taxes) by doing it over and over again is more likely to make you hate it and stop doing it.

I realize that it is 2am and I’m exhausted physically so I should go to bed, but mentally I feel on fire.

This doesn't happen to very many people.

bd• 17 years ago

The ability to work hard seems to be even more talent-based than being smart. Executive functions [1] are supposed to be highly heritable, more so than the intelligence [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions

[2] http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/05/99_ge...

sjs• 17 years ago

I think working hard is far more important than being smart or having a natural ability to code.

Ok so you may know a lot and pick things up quickly, what do you have to show for it?

I learned this lesson personally. I like learning about programming topics for the sake of learning but nobody cares what you know, they care what you've done with that knowledge.

chriseppstein3• 17 years ago

Great post!

I feel exactly the same way. But one thing I do think I have (and you do too, obviously) is taste. I can look at my code and see it as good or bad (most of the time bad). That means I can keep striving to make it good. And my eye for what is good and bad keeps maturing so when I go look at code I wrote two years ago that I was pretty proud of, I see bad code now.

Without the ability to see that your code can and should be better, your work ethic cannot kick in.

jnunemaker3• 17 years ago

Yes, but you didn't have that from the start. Taste comes with practice too.

chriseppstein3• 17 years ago

That's probably true. But one thing that was always innate in me: the ability to sit in front of a computer for 12 hours without going insane ;-)

I read a lot of other people's code. I think that's important to developing taste -- at least as important as writing a lot of code if not more so.

dschobel• 17 years ago

This video from Ira Glass (of This American Life fame) sums up the discrepancy between taste and ability beautifully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE

He talks about how you get into a creative field because there are works of it which you love and you can distinguish early on between good/interesting and bad/banal work.

But then you start making stuff. And for the first few years, it just isn't very good, and you realize that.

He talks about bridging that gap and how it took him eight (!) years before he started making things which he even recognized as being interesting and good.

It's probably the best piece of advice I've ever seen for people still at the frustrating end of a creative career.

I know too many kids who showed an early eye for quality in some field (architecture, CS, etc) but then gave up out of frustration when the stuff they made wasn't up their own standards.

chriseppstein3• 17 years ago

Yep. I've seen that. It's a must watch.

wallflower2• 17 years ago

+1 for remention of this Ira Glass video

sunkencity• 17 years ago

I am addicted to the phase of working with something new when I feel totally humiliated because there's too much to understand. the feeling of victory when things work properly is so great, but it takes hard work and perseverance.

I'm getting back into rails for a project and this time I really try to not hold back on looking things up and doing it right. I feel I can pull it off in a rather good way this time, it takes a lot of work and research to know enough to be able to read the docs efficiently and when to expect a one-liner solution in the framework. But I still feel totally stupid. It is also easier to judge plugins. There are so many juicy things in rails these days, like nemed scopes that take lambdas, it's really getting there.

derefr2• 17 years ago

People say "I wish I could do that" about everything. Playing a musical instrument, for instance. It's not that they can't--it's that they don't have the time in their lives to devote to practicing it. "I wish I could do that" really means "I wish I had the extra time to do everything I'm currently doing, but also fit in something low on my priority list, like that."

xiaoma• 17 years ago

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/musical-talent-pro...

igorhvr• 17 years ago

Time rarely is the real problem. Fears, lack of energy, lack of focus, etc usually is what prevents people from doing things... And even when time is the issue, often stopping yourself from wasting time is an effective solution.

derefr2• 17 years ago

Indeed: if you really got a sudden influx of free time, you'd likely invest it on something high in your priority list that doesn't need the extra time investment, but seemingly desires it (e.g. it activates your dopamine system); by the time you got to the low-priority tasks, none of the extra time would be left over. People can overcome their fears, lack of energy/focus, etc., but only when they make it a priority to.

Timothee• 17 years ago

That sounds corny, but… My grandmother has always said: "Don't say that you didn't have time, but only that you didn't take the time".

Every time I'm tempted to say that I didn't have the time, the reality is that I wasted my time doing something else. (like writing comments about my grandmother on Hacker News)

ellyagg2• 17 years ago

It's doubtful free time is the bottleneck for most people not acquiring new skills and abilities. Enormous quantities of time are drained from folks' lives by procrastination.

tjic3• 17 years ago

... and by news.yc !

;-)

nkh• 17 years ago

This discussion always reminds me of a poem by Herbert Kauffman printed in "How I raised myself from failure to Success in Sales":

You are the man who used to boast

That you'd achieve the uttermost,

Some day.

You merely wished a show,

To demonstrate how much you know

And prove the distance you can go....

Another year we've just passed through

What new ideas came to you?

How many big things did you do?

Time...left twelve fresh months in your care

How many of them did you share

With opportunity and dare

Again where you so often missed?

We do not find you on the list of Makers Good.

Explain that fact!

Ah no, 'twas not the chance you lacked!

As usual-you failed to act!

tjic3• 17 years ago

> People say "I wish I could do that" about everything. Playing a musical instrument, for instance.

Among my resolutions for 2010: learn guitar.

Step 1: signed up for weekly lessons every Thursday, as of ... 20 minutes ago.

Onward!

wallflower2• 17 years ago

My friend Michelle just started learning guitar. She thinks it's all about getting the basic chord patterns and fingering down. And only way to do that is to practice chording every day. Good luck!

Sukotto• 17 years ago

You might want to try using a spaced repetition (SRS) flashcard app to help you practice. ( Personally, I use http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/ + dropbox . It's crude, but it works well for me)

I know... it sounds dumb. But I'm serious. It really helps.

1) When you learn, say, the C Major chord, make a new card that says "play the C Major", with the answer being the fingering chart for that chord. It will then keep track of how well you remember that chord and ask you to play it less often as you get better and better at remembering it.

2) When you learn to play a particular song, set up a card to remind you to play it. The answer to this one should probably just list what book + page number to find the song. (That's just for the early stage when you might not remember it at all.)

3) Finally, set up a Seinfield chain ( http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-se... ) for the task "practice my guitar" where the task is simply to work through the guitar flashcards for the day (there's often surprisingly few of them). http://www.joesgoals.com/ is a particularly good tool for something like this.

Good luck with your foray into the world of music. I hope it becomes a real passion for you.

scott_s• 17 years ago

Sometimes it also means "I wish I could magically be able to do that because I don't want to work hard at it."

moserware• 17 years ago

Same goes for saying you're too old:

"it isn't that young people learn that much faster; it's just they have more time. When I would put time in, I made progress." - Dan Ingalls

Arun20093• 17 years ago

> It's not that they can't--it's that they don't have the time in their lives to devote to practicing it.

There is also the fact that most of us don't know how to learn efficiently. For example, how many of us really know the current theories of memory and how we may exploit it to enhance our learning?

username• 17 years ago

What are the current theories of memory and how we may exploit it to enhance our learning? Found http://www.wired.com/search?query=memory+program while searching for that article about the guy that made that memory program. http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...

latortuga• 17 years ago

Talent has always struck me as a strange thing to compliment people on, much like complementing them on the country they were born in or their last name. It's not something you can really help if we accept it as something innate. If however you think that someone shows particular adeptness at a skill of some kind, imo it's more applicable to compliment hard work or to note that years of practice has clearly paid off.

Psyonic• 17 years ago

People comment on good lucks all the time, and it's largely inherited. You can work out, eat right, etc, but you can't change your bone structure (without surgery, at least).

richcollins3• 17 years ago

I used to think that I wasn’t smart enough. I was jealous of those that did crazy code stuff that I couldn’t even comprehend. Then, one day, I ran into something I did not understand and instead of giving up, I pushed through.

You shouldn't be jealous of people that do "crazy code stuff". It's a sign that they haven't learned how to create simple solutions yet.

prospero• 17 years ago

One definition of "crazy code" is some monument of complexity that has accreted around a simple core.

Another definition, though, is something that approaches the problem at right angles, bypassing all kinds of incidental complexity. This is generally confusing at first glance, but is definitely worth the time it takes to understand.

eru• 17 years ago

Yes. You can find a lot of stuff like this at the Haskell mailing list. The hard solutions are usually better, and people like Heinrich Apfelmus explain it all.

j_baker• 17 years ago

Unfortunately, that isn't necessarily true. In my experience a "complex" piece of code is more often a piece of code you just don't understand. You should generally try to understand a piece of code before you dismiss it as overly complex.

richcollins3• 17 years ago

It isn't necessarily true but it usually is. Developers spend way too much time getting cute, optimizing for the infrequent case. Choosing a slight increase in verbosity in favor of simplicity of implementation is usually a better decision.

richcollins3• 17 years ago

I do not measure myself against the programming greats, but against those projects on my Github profile from years ago.

This is good advice. It is the best way continually increase your status without constantly feeling like you are trying to one up your peers.

christofd• 17 years ago

Great advice. My Dad always told me I suck at music. But I just wouldn't give up. I destroyed one Cello bow along the way in frustration for my lacking skill, but now 20 years later I got this beast under control.

Then, of course, there are the people that are hopeless, and no amount of practice will get them over the hill.

larrywright• 17 years ago

I think there are people to whom these skills come more naturally, but people seem to underestimate the degree to which fierce determination and persistence can overcame a lack of natural ability.

This is probably less true for purely physical pursuits (athletic activities, for example), but not entirely untrue.

freakwit• 17 years ago

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein

arthurk2• 17 years ago

I also found this quote in the comments: “I’m not a great programmer; I’m just a good programmer with great habits.” (Refactoring, Beck Fowler, 1999).

edw519• 17 years ago

Great post!

I can easily identify with OP. I also learned hard work from my father and from my first job (McDonald's), where you simply could not go home until all the work was done. I've had that same work ethic ever since.

This post also reminds me of most successful business people I've even known. Their single biggest differentiator (that I noticed) was a refusal to stop trying to get something done, not just with each business, but with every thing they did every single day.

The other thing I love about this post is that it's clearly by someone who has been through the wars. A poser would never even think to say things like:

I’m exhausted physically so I should go to bed, but mentally I feel on fire so I let the code have me for another hour or two.

a GitHub profile stuffed with code I regret

I ran into something I did not understand and instead of giving up, I pushed through.

I sat there in front of my computer for hours and wrestled with class and class instance variables.

I have attacked each thing that I do not understand until I understand it.

There are still so many people out there who are far better than I am, but that does not stop me anymore.

And +1 for my favorite:

I beat code that isn’t working into submission (though often times the code wins).

ellyagg2• 17 years ago

"I do not measure myself against the programming greats, but against those projects on my Github profile from years ago."

This is so much the key. At college I read a sports psychology textbook which described the empirical profile of a "winner". One of the traits was that winners compete against themselves, not others. A marathoner's goal should be to beat their best time in their next competitive marathon. An example of a basketball player's goal might be to improve their free throw percentage over the next 5 games.

If you focus on improving yourself, beating other people takes care of itself (if you're capable and that sort of thing matters to you). But, either way, you do the best you can and that's all anyone can ask of themselves.

jnunemaker3• 17 years ago

"One of the traits was that winners compete against themselves, not others."

Awesome!

pbhjpbhj• 17 years ago

>If you focus on improving yourself, beating other people takes care of itself (if you're capable and that sort of thing matters to you).

As you note, unclearly, this only works if you're at the top of your game. If I do a marathon in 12 hours then beating my personal best isn't going to get me anywhere close to a gold medal. Also I've always found that competing with my betters tends to bring up my game.

I feel I have to say, to counter any false assumptions: To win at sport for me has always meant to feel I've performed well and enjoyed the game - and that's not because I'm totally rubbish. Winning is something I enjoy, but winning badly is worse than losing well.

xhuang• 17 years ago

great post, i thought i was the only one like that, sometimes i feel really stupid that i can't come up with a good solution for the problem, and in the end fail to do anything.

this really remind me: "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration" - Thomas Edison

arthurk2• 17 years ago

Thanks for editing the title. It previously included "RailsTips by" and I thought this was for Rails developers and didn't click on it.

bg4• 17 years ago

I hope that this quote isn't so well known that it's cliche but it is one of my personal favorites.

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On, has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race."

Calvin Coolidge

codexon3• 17 years ago

It's rather ironic that this quote is coming from someone who advocated doing as little as possible as president, refused to run for a second term because he felt he would be elected for too long, and very arguably contributed to the Great Depression that happened the year after his term ended.

miked• 17 years ago

and very arguably contributed to the Great Depression that happened the year after his term ended.

The Great Depression was triggered by the US Fed (created in 1913), which massively increased the money supply, and the passage of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley trade protection bill in 1929.

Note that the money supply increase gave birth to the Roaring 20's, not unlike what we've had for the last seven years (up till early 2008). Note that the current US administration is also increasing trade protection as well (Chinese tires, etc.)

Maktab• 17 years ago

How so? His political decisions and policy were based on his conviction that the federal government should have as little role as possible and that social, financial, corporate and labour regulations should be implemented at the state level. We may argue about the wisdom of this view and the role it may or may not have had in creating the Great Depression, but I don't see how it conflicts with his personal views on talent and perseverance.

kjdfsdf• 17 years ago

Unrewarded genius is a proverb:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

ggchappell• 17 years ago

A key concept that is not mentioned in this article is interest. He is right about practicing. However, practicing things I am not interested in is drudgery, while practicing things I am interested in ... mostly just happens. The result is that most of us get very good at the things we are interested in.

Blessed are those who are very interested in something that the rest of the world values.

mtoledo2• 17 years ago

I have to agree with you that those that are interested in what the world values are the most blessed, but no practice 100% enjoyable. Risking misquoting him, I remember reading in one of Kasparov's books "I only love 80% of chess. I do the other 20% so that I can do the 80%".

In Ericsson's book about deliberate practice, he shows thru multiple studies that practice for world class performers is usually painful and not enjoyable at all. He even says that 'if you're sailing thru it, you're not practicing' (or I read this on an article about it).

In the end, liking what you do helps you put up with the practicing you need to do to perform what you like

edit: wrote 80% where I was supposed to write 100% (facepalm)

coffeemug• 17 years ago

Ahh, the half-truths that sound so nice, people don't bother to look at the other half :) Hard work is necessary but not sufficient. Talent (or genetics, or natural inclination, or a good teacher that came along early on, whatever you want to call it) is another variable that's necessary but not sufficient.

When I was just starting out my friend and I both got the same computers. Our parents sent us to the same Sunday computer class to learn. We were both pretty bright. Except I quickly excelled at it, and he was stuck. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't catch up. What came naturally to me was an uphill battle for him. If he started out again today, there's no way he'd ever catch up to me, not in a million years.

He was far better at sports than me. During gym, he'd run circles around me while I barely stood there, gasping for breath. No matter how hard I worked, I could never outdo him. I suppose if I set out to practice my running full time every day of the week, I could (with huge effort) outdo all the lazy people that have the talent for it. But it's unlikely I'd ever outdo the talented people who work for it, and I certainly have no chance in hell to outrun Donovan Bailey, not in a million years.

Oh, and talent and hard work together are necessary but not sufficient. You could work 24/7 at hammering a mountain with a toothpick, and you could get really good at it, but you still won't get anywhere. You have to have enough sense and enough luck to stumble on the right thing (or to have enough sense and enough luck to stumble onto the method or process that will help you stumble onto the right thing).

It's not just hard work - that's a pipe dream. There are as many workaholics that toil for years and never see the light at the end of the tunnel as there are lazy talented people that never get anywhere. The truth is, you might never succeed at what you've set out to do despite being hard working and talented. In fact, the statistics are overwhelmingly against you. It's not empowering and it's not romantic to say that, but it's the truth.

nostrademons• 17 years ago

I'm not sure that's really true. There was a discussion on it here about 3 weeks ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012986

I think there's a feedback loop of sorts, where people tend to enjoy things they're good at more, so they spend more time at them, so they get better at them, so they enjoy them more. This feedback loop gets started by what we normally think of as "talent" - inborn ability. But what if that talent is just the random chance that your first try happens to be the right way to perform that skill?

There're ways to interrupt the feedback loop too, which is why both talent and hard work seem to be necessary but not sufficient conditions. If you decide you really don't want to do something, you're not going to practice, even if you're good at it. Or if you decide you're going to keep trying approaches until you get over whatever block is holding you back, you can become talented at something even if you weren't initially successful at it.

alanthonyc• 17 years ago

I love the point that he makes.

At its worst extreme, people use the fact that "others are talented" to excuse their own mediocrity - which really just stems from their unwillingness to put in the time.

whyme• 17 years ago

I couldn't find the quote, but I think it was Wayne Gretzky who said he'd take someone hard working over someone with talent + poor work ethic. Now hard working + talent = something to really watch for.

A few I did find:

  “The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, 
   that I never dog it.” – Wayne Gretzky

  “It is one thing to be talented but if you do not work hard, it is worth nothing..."  
  – Wayne Gretzky

The last one might have been what I was remembering...

timinman• 17 years ago

'fantastic perspective.

Arun20093• 17 years ago

IMHO, this is like saying, "I am not really beautiful. It's just that my face and features are symmetric and they just happen to confirm to traditional norms of attractiveness".

A lot of what we take to be talent is "hard" work, except that the work doesn't seem hard to those who love doing what they do. In other words, talent is just a transformed form of obsession with a subject. The more you work with something with the intention of getting better at it, the better you get at it. And the rate of getting better just keeps accelerating until there comes a point where few other humans could hope to catch up with you in your lifetime.

Gilson_Silveira• 17 years ago

Great Post!

Code Forrest! Code!

nadam• 17 years ago

I think you need both talent and persistence to be successful. And I agree that talent is generally overrated (but needed).

If you have some talent and also some persistence in things which you like, than you may still have some problems: you need some time management strategy. This is by far the key issue for me: What am I really interested in? Shall I dig deeper in that subject? Or shall I go and learn new things in which I am a beginner and not THAT interested? Shall I do things which I am really interested in, or shall I work in a day job for more money, to make enough money to take care of my family? Shall I practice creating algorithms, which I am pretty good at right now but not the best, or shall I learn more about marketing, in which I am a beginner? Shall I choose a hobby project in a theoretical territory like creating an interesting programming language, or shall I execute my other idea which is not THAT interesting intellectually, but still interesting enough, and can earn me money if successful?

So I think the key is not only persistence, but to choose what to do, to find your style, to find out what is the thing you are really talented/interested in, what you want to excel at. Hacking is still a very broad territory in itself. You cannot be the best in every aspect of it even if you practice for years or decades. To reach a very high level the key is to choose what to learn and practice very cleverly (or luckily).

t3rcio• 17 years ago

This post remember the Thomas Alva Edson's. He said: "Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration"

ippisl• 17 years ago

can't good memory become very helpfull in programming? and how good is the the author working memory ? my point is that being smart is not the only important capability for programming.

I Have No Talent

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