Why Learning to Fly (or Code) Is Easier Than You Think

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/01/why-learning-to-fly-or-code-is-easier-than-you-think/69324/

by budu • 16 years ago

52 13 16 years ago

"The net effect of which is to make "programming" an exercise in (a) wanting to do something, (b) realizing that someone's probably done it before, (c) looking up what they did, and (d) tweaking it a little bit. As I tweak I begin to understand, and to become less a user of all this wonderful mess than a contributor to it."

I wouldn't say that's what programming is. I would say that's a good way to just create something simple. A thoughtful understanding of the entire stack is necessary to create a solid base, but given the fact many people just wan't something quick his approach should be fine.

udp• 16 years ago

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but - as interested as I genuinely am in learning to fly one day, why is it that so many flying-related articles tend to crop up on HN over the months?

nkurz• 16 years ago

It's an interesting question. The logic of the article isn't great, but perhaps there truly are some deep similarities between flight and code. As he points out, both have a tradition of learning by on the job experience, and providing a sense of freedom to those willing to master the basics. Both also have an somewhat uneasy interplay between the 'professionals' and the 'amateurs'.

From the article, the most salient part for me was the "World War II attitude". There are tons of regulations for flying, but in end one is truly in charge of the vessel. Pilots and engineers are among relatively few professions where one can answer 'unable' and presume that the rest of the conversation will take this as fact. You may have to deal with the consequences later, but in the moment you are the expert in control.

aaroneous2• 16 years ago

There's a requisite level of precision that I think programmers can feel comfortable with.

There are also few things that are more refreshing after you've been sitting in front of a computer all day than flying to the coast, popping open the window at 4,000ft and taking in a California sunset.

mquander• 16 years ago

Why Writing For The Atlantic Is Easier Than You Think

I expected there to be some sort of rigorous process--a waiting period? a physical? some paperwork?--before I'd be allowed to publish an essay to hundreds of thousands of readers. But here's what happened instead: On a whim, I called a friend of mine who's a columnist for his local alt-weekly and set up an appointment for a $79, 45-minute lesson. Two weeks later I picked a mildly unusual experience of mine and gave a brief, rushed overview of it, remaining about as deep as a kiddie pool throughout.

Thanks to my friend, I knew the secret to writing modern middlebrow pop-culture essays -- just draw some arbitrary connection between your topic and another topic that seems, at first, to be totally unrelated. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before my deadline, and I never really found an interesting connection. But it's hard to complain when you're playing in the clouds.

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

On a related note, is it just me, or everyday are we seeing articles from theatlantic.com?

I didn't notice so many a year or two ago. Seems like every time I bring up the front page any more, there's an article from there.

Not complaining really -- some are really good articles (although I'm not so crazy about this one, and many do have a tendency to run on a bit). Just weird.

naba• 16 years ago

Maybe its just but I couldn't get any connection between flying planes and coding from the article. But I do have learning to fly planes on my to-do list

aaroneous2• 16 years ago

Try a discovery flight. It's a cheap, no-commitment way to see what flying small planes is like.

After you're back on the ground you'll probably find yourself bumping up the priority of flying lessons on your todo.

TGJ• 16 years ago

Flying is easy, paying for the lessons and gas is not.

rexreed• 16 years ago

Except the penalty for crashing when you fly is much more severe than when code crashes.

borism• 16 years ago

unless your code flies the plane :)

unoti• 16 years ago

When I was in my 20s during the dot com boom, I decided I'd take up flying to peruse a lifelong dream. I was loving it. After a couple of months I was almost ready for my first solo flight.

Then I started looking at my total monthly expenses for instruction and plane rental. When I looked at the numbers, I decided that this must be a good time to buy a house. I was spending what was, for me, a great deal of money. The money I was spending on flying easily paid for a house payment once I made that decision.

One other thing that was quite unexpected. At the time, I was working as a consultant doing large ERP system implementations for fortune 500 companies. As anyone who does this for a living will tell you, this can be a very stressful occupation. The multitasking aspect of flying was like: watch 15 things all at once, make sure nothing goes wrong, and if you screw up, the consequences will be extremely dire, and everything is very time critical, and all eyes are on you as you make very important actions. At some point, it occurred to me: "hey! This is exactly the same kind of stress I feel at work!"

Another thing that surprised me initially about flying small planes. It feels like being in a flying lawnmower, nothing at all like being in a commercial jet. It made me feel very sick at first. They say you get used to it with time.

I think, though, that at some point the situational awareness and multitasking becomes second nature, and you can do it feeling merely alert instead of stressed and overtaxed. But I never spent enough money on flying time to get to that point personally.

There's nothing like the fun of staring at a map and plotting where you're going to go, though, I hope I'm financially successful enough to get back into it some day when other affairs are in order.

stevenbedrick• 16 years ago

One of my advisors once summed up aviation-as-a-hobby in one sentence: "The times in your life during which you've got adequate free time to devote to the hobby, you don't have the money... and when you've got the money for it, you don't have the free time."

Why Learning to Fly (or Code) Is Easier Than You Think

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