Nerds – you can’t know it all.
I’ve been a professional nerd for many years now, and over that time I’ve learned to use many different technologies including 8-9 programming languages, a few operating systems and a whole bunch of frameworks, database programs etc …
… The sad truth
Recently, I was challenged with some tech problem, and to be honest about it, I forgot the specific steps to solve it!!
This always bothers me – when you forget how to do something you once knew so well.
I am now resigned to the fact that I’ve probably forgotten more than I now remember. I guess there is only so much room in your brain ..?
You can’t know it all
This brings me to my larger point: as a professional nerd, it is not realistic to think you will learn everything that is out there. There is simply too much and you have to pick your battles.
That said, that doesn’t mean you should learn one or two things and then just rest on your laurels. No, you have to keep learning otherwise you will fall behind and you won’t stay competitive.
Focus on your specialty
It is wise to decide where you want to go in your nerd career, and then focus in that area.
For instance, if you want to be a web designer (I’m talking design centric stuff) you should learn all that you can about the front-end of web design:
- HTML
- CSS
- Basic design principles
- A touch of PHP … just a touch!
- Javascript
- Maybe some Flash
You probably shouldn’t be so concerned about learning how to set up Apache or how to configure a Linux server. These skills may come in handy once in a while, but these really are the skills that system administrators should worry about.
Play to your strengths
Just because you like something, or are attracted to it, it doesn’t mean you will be any good at it!
… Although sometimes, what you like is often what you will be good at.
What works out for me, is to forget about the things I suck at and instead, concentrate on my talents.
I (for example) am at best a moderate designer. Sure, I can build a professional looking website, but it ain’t going to win any awards! Instead, I rely on the skills of the truly talented web designers (using web templates or simply hire them) and then concentrate on those things that I can do pretty well.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
June 21st, 2008 at 11:55 pm
This is all too true. If you spent all your time learning, you couldn’t use the time you need to practice what you learned, much less put it to practical use.
I have been learning for quite a few years, and unfortunately, I’m running out of tutorials to learn web design and such. Now I am mostly asking all sorts of questions to everyone I meet online, and learning all I can that way. However, I am still learning what I’m good at. For instance, I have completely dropped JavaScript for PHP because PHP suits me better and supports all browsers. I still know JavaScript enough to pick it up again when I need it, but not enough to make really complicated scripts.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Wow,
I need to sit down and evaluate my strenghth and weakness…I too believe it’s good to discover the basics for each program and decide which is the better fit.
Stefan, what about learning basic photoshop/paint shop pro? I thought that is part of design centric.
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Juice,
I would agree, basic design these days means you should learn some sort of image editor, whether it be Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
We have a bunch of videos on the subject coming out soon.
Stefan
June 26th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Hey Stefan,
Yes, I’m finding the older I get, the less I remember! A sad state of affairs…
One other comment: why not ASP instead of PHP? It’s just as powerful, easier to learn, and there are a lot of great resources for it out there. PHP is more of a “programmers” programming language, whereas even do-it-yourselfers can pick up some useful ASP scripting.
~Graham
June 26th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
It’s refreshing to see someone else admit this. Although I am sure that there are some people who DO know it all, they are no doubt extremely rare. It is no doubt easy to become very familiar with one syntax but, once you decide to learn something new, it seems that the old stuff becomes much harder to recall.
I think part of the problem is that the languages are so similar in many respects, that you forget for example how the date formats work in Javascript, versus PHP, versus Actionscript 2.0/3.0 or what have you. (CSS and HTML are basic enough and sort of fall into a general, all purpose, not-easy-to-forget category).
I have often thought that it would be helpful to have sort of a matrix that shows the syntax for each of the top 5 or so web languages (these will vary for every developer no doubt) to serve as a cheatsheet/memory aid to review the basic syntax for each.
IE –
Array declaration:
Javascript: var myArray = new Array();
PHP: $myArray = array ();
Actionscript 3.0: var myArray:Array = new Array();
Of course it would all be in a nice well-formatted table, etc. Has anyone encountered such a beast? Maybe it already exists . . .
June 26th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Tony G,
That would be a good chart indeed.
Stefan
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
The fact of the matter is technology keeps changing. Also there’s so much to know, it’s so dang hard to keep up with all this. If i were to come up with a list of essentials i would have stated the same thing as you.
-jared b.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Hello fellow nerd! What I wouldn’t give for a photographic memory!! You could rule the world…
October 19th, 2008 at 10:21 am
I’ve been feeling the same way – although I have worked out a solution to this memory problem.
Whenever I do something techie, I create a new wiki page for the task/mission on a password-protected personal Trac site. (Trac is an open source ”project management ticketing application”).
I have two kinds of wiki pages for each techie thing that i do; First is a P.O.A (Plan of Action). The other is a ”HowTo”.
As I learn, google search and research how to do the particular task I scribble my progress in my POA notes.
Then once i have finished the task – i get on with my life.
Months later, if i need to repeat the task again, i go through my POA page and transfer the knowledge over to a ”HowTo” page – writing it up more neatly.
Then, every time i need to repeat the task, i search my wiki and its all there for me: a personal step-by-step tutorial that gets the job done in next-to-no-time.
I highly recommend it.
Here’s a sample of my pages (note they are named in wiki format):
# HowToAddAnEmailAccountToOutlook
# HowToBackUpDataBase
# POAsMovingtoHomeOffice
# POAsSetUpQueryCaching
# POAsThingsToIncludeInTermsAndConditions
December 9th, 2008 at 1:28 am
wow… Let me think what nerd career should I focus.. For now I’m playing the role of my life as a web developer and focusing on PHP as server side scripting…. Anyway, I’m still new to it.. still too young.. ^_^. ..
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I am awed. I too should focus on a specific 2nd career. Pushing paper is no fun. I definitely do not want to be a manager. I want to develop websites. There is so much too learn. I have to laugh at myself… I get frustrated trying to establish links within a page. I have a long way to go! I haven’t begun to crawl so Alex and other aspiring web developers hang in! That’s for me too!