There is no such thing as "sales", and you aren't a "salesman". You provide a solution to a problem. Listen, understand, and then offer a solution.
I forgot who told me that but it's fantastic advice. As far as understanding people, the de facto book to read is "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I'd highly recommend that.
> You provide a solution to a problem. Listen, understand, and then offer a solution.
This becomes clear in the classic "sell me this pen" exercise. First find out about the client, what they do, how they would use the pen. Once you know where their focus is, discussing your solution becomes easy and natural.
While that's true at the most abstract level, that doesn't mean that there isn't a whole lot one can learn beyond that, for example on recognizing customer archetypes, how to talk to each archetype to gain pathos with them, how to approach new clients, how to handle objections, how (and when) to close, ... So I would definitely say that there is something like sales, and yes it revolves around 'providing solutions', but that doesn't mean that anyone who can provide solutions to problems can bring in revenue.
Carnegie is a useful book for life in general, don't get me wrong - it's just that it's only the 'foundation' of sales and there is a big distance between that foundation and the actual practice of doing sales. Much like algebra is a 'foundation' of programming, yet nobody gets hired to program based on their ability to multiple two numbers.
I think advocating Dale Carnegie is a sign that "the lights are on but nobody is home".
There is a lot of stuff in Carnegie that makes sense, but I have seen people advocate Dale Carnegie and get "upvoted" (or the equivalent) but I think the people who would benefit from Dale Carnegie aren't in a position to really benefit from it.
I don't usually reply to HN posts but in this instance I'm deeply troubled by most of the posts you've made in this thread, but the most unsettling thing you've said thus far is:
> Because they are creating a world that is just very slightly more considerate than the one before.
Who gives you, or anyone else, the right to "create a world" in which I am a member of and can dictate what I can and cannot say? Why do you get to decide what is "considerate"?
I see this in our next generation and this trend is most troubling indeed.
> Who gives you, or anyone else, the right to "create a world" in which I am a member of and can dictate what I can and cannot say?
"Dictating"? You're not being required not to say words. People are suggesting it might be inconsiderate. Although I suppose that eventually it might become culturally unacceptable.
As for 'the right to "create a world"', nobody has a "right" to change culture, it's simply a thing which happens. Some people attempt to influence how it changes.
Though another answer might be that everyone has the right: everyone has the human right to free speech, and speech affects culture.
> I see this in our next generation and this trend is most troubling indeed
Culture shifts are nothing new. People believing they can change culture, and doing it, is nothing new.
I don't know that it really applies to this video, but there are other videos out there of people recording video while looking at the window at the explosion, where they're far enough away to have a few seconds' warning before the shock wave hits.
In this instance, a massive and towering inferno in a port/construction zone/etc would be a reasonable marker that an explosion is possible and likely imminent.
Looks to me like he may have seen the explosion and then instead of dropping to the ground, reached into a satchel to retrieve a camera. I'm very very sorry for this person and his friends and family.
So by "gap" you mean unable to answer some trivial questions during an interview that don't pertain to the job at all?
While I agree self-taught developers may lack knowledge in certain areas, they compensate by being able to learn quickly and efficiently for the job at hand. School taught, though not always, will lack that discipline and/or efficiency. At least in my experience, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
> they compensate by being able to learn quickly and efficiently for the job at hand.
We ALL need to be able to learn quickly or we simply don't last. If you've been doing this for a decade or more, you're guaranteed to have that skill in abundance, regardless of your origins.
What the OP was getting at is that you get exposed to a host of different ideas and paradigms in a proper CS program. Assembly, lisp/ada/scheme/etc., C/C++/Java, graphics, computer learning, computer architecture, etc.
I learned how to code when I was ten, but I would have never exposed myself to any of those things if I didn't focus on CS in college. What does that add? Exactly what the OP said. I know what I don't know. And it's a lot.
> We ALL need to be able to learn quickly or we simply don't last.
I totally agree with that statement. In my response, I meant that self-taught devs have a leg up, so to speak, in the beginning. In the end, we all need to learn quickly and adapt regardless of how we started.
> Assembly, lisp/ada/scheme/etc., C/C++/Java, graphics, computer learning, computer architecture, etc.
From my own experience as a self-taught developer, I have learned, though maybe never used professionally, almost all of those topics to some degree because I had a keen interest in understanding software and computing in general. I find that self-taught devs, though not a majority, are like that - they want to know and understand because its passion of theirs. Also, i'm not saying that university trained students lack that passion either. I believe at the end of the day it really doesnt matter whether you are self-taught or not, only the passion you bring into learning and understanding is what matters.
Do basic CS concepts pertain to the job? Well that depends on your job I guess. I consider them the tools of the trade that will outlast all the languages and frameworks that will come and go in a career. And you can intuitively learn them by self-teaching, but it's less certain, and just as importantly, you may not learn them in the same vocabulary as others. CS gives you a shared vocabulary for talking about these concepts with others.
Given your other comment I suspect you're speaking from an observation bias leading you to judgement about the general case that doesn't necessarily stack. You witness those who've made it as devs, but that doesn't tell you anything about those who didn't.
The important question is of those who self-learn, how many of them end up as decent developers, vs those who go through a formal CS ed. Or to re-frame, what's the better course for the majority of people who want to become developers? I don't know of any numbers on this, so can only go off what I've seen, and what I've seen is that for the average person considering dev, a CS education is the best option.
If you read my other comment you also read the part where I said I have been around a lot of terrible developers (worked with, for, under, around, consulted for, etc). These people have "made it" as you said, with long careers in software development, but they are far from competent. Which leads us to your next point:
> how many of them end up as decent developers
I don't honestly think where or how you start can be used as any sort of determination for how "decent" you are. What matters to me is passion (i've said this a few times already in other comments). When I am hiring and interviewing developers to bring on to the team I barely look at their resumes and I definitely don't look at their education history. Whats more important to me is the initial call, and then the face-to-face. I don't even bother asking any real technical questions. What i'm looking for is a spark; something that tells me this person loves to build and learn. Self-taught or university taught makes no difference at the end of the day, and should never be used as basis to judge whether a person is a "decent" developer or not.
This is going to be a highly biased answer, and will probably be downvoted. I don't think there is any difference between a "good" programmer that was self-taught or one that had a degree in CS/SE. The reason I put "good" is because, at least in my field, there are a lot of terrible programmers/coders/developers/etc that come from all backgrounds - be it self-taught or with a degree (I work in a local market for .NET). I think a persons background is a terrible starting point to determine their competence. I personally am self-taught, having started "coding" when I was about 8. I have a colleague who didn't start coding until he was in college, and I think him and I are about the same skill level. We have different strengths: he is more architecturally minded, while I am more of a "hacker" (I can figure any technical problem out though it may not be pretty). In the course of my career though, I have met many self-taught coders and university trained ones, and to me it makes almost no difference. What it comes down to is passion, and that can be extremely hard to quantify. For me personally, having been doing this for almost two decades, you just have to feel the person out. If you are passionate, you should be able to tell if they are as well.
> Kids should learn to follow rules even when they don't like them.
Except when you're forced to go through 16+ years of conforming and not being able to say "no" without being labeled a problem-child. That's a long time to be in the creative and free-thinking suppression chamber, and by my estimate most minds don't ever truly recover.
> Personally, I think asian kids achieve more things...
Personally, I think asian kids are brilliant when it comes to rote-memorization and standardized testing but they totally lack in the creativity department. Just look at all of the articles, studies, etc that show that the East has a severe lack of creativity. As an example: [1]. Ill take free-thinkers over number crunchers any day.
I added some restaurants to the Miami, FL area. I can add a bunch more to the fort lauderdale area as well, but would be nice to get some sort of reward for participating :)
Thanks for adding restaurants! I've got a couple of ideas for rewarding active engagement. One thought I have is awarding people something like a 'Super Hackers' status and their endorsements and profiles promoted. Another idea I've been tossing around is giving people the ability to make special lists which could also be featured.
There is no such thing as "sales", and you aren't a "salesman". You provide a solution to a problem. Listen, understand, and then offer a solution.
I forgot who told me that but it's fantastic advice. As far as understanding people, the de facto book to read is "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I'd highly recommend that.