

Ask HN: Paradigm changes you've experienced? - andrewt

I was wondering if people on HN could share some 'paradigm changes' in the way they look at the world they've experienced.<p>For example as a student of math, the fundamental way in which I view things could be more or less summarized into three phases:<p>- Emphasis on 'objects' (high school): E.g. what are the properties of this specific real valued function? Solve this specific geometry problem. Where does this specific function attain a maximum?<p>- Abstraction to spaces (undergrad): The focus changes to abstract spaces and structures (e.g. topological spaces, groups, function spaces). E.g. Instead of focusing on the properties of one function, we study properties of a function space. A theorem proven about groups in general applies to any example of a group.<p>- Categorical abstraction (grad school): We can abstract further from specific structures to categories. Many structure-specific constructions (e.g. direct sums of groups, disjoint unions of sets, wedge products of pointed space) can be unified into categorical constructions (e.g. the co-product for those just listed). The language of functors provides a uniform way of talking about mapping one type of structure into another.<p>Another unrelated major viewpoint change I've experienced is that I've resigned myself to the fact that the world is much more random and uncontrollable than we believe it is. Pretty much all major events in my life have been unpredictable and essentially due to chance. This realization has provided me with more peace of mind, than before when I was much more worried about "making the right decisions".<p>I am interested in what meta-viewpoints people have experienced, and any changes they've experienced. They can be related to anything: computer programming, science, life, relationships ...
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prodigal_erik
> What programmers in a hundred years will be looking for, most of all, is a
> language where you can throw together an unbelievably inefficient version 1
> of a program with the least possible effort. -
> <http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html>

After years of working in C++, it took me a long time to come to believe that
a lot of that work had really just been wasted effort, optimization decisions
far removed from the problem domain that other languages let you completely
ignore. Right now I'm enjoying Haskell, but I think JavaScript is going to win
(even over Python and Ruby), because it's very easy to get something sloppy
but often working and not quite slow enough to be unusable, and that's all
customers will pay for.

> When I was a kid I always imagined I'd be normal by now. -
> <http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1586>

I spent most of my 20s and 30s just minding the store, not limiting my
options, unconsciously waiting for the sane and perfect version of me to show
up and do something with my life. But he's not coming. It's just me, and
whatever I don't get around to isn't ever going to happen.

And choosing a career that keeps you poor isn't noble but self-indulgent—it
pays badly because we already have more people than we need doing the same
thing, because that's all they want to do. Money is the measure of how much
society actually values your contribution and wants to convince you to keep at
it.

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hga
I understood the world a whole lot better after reading _The Selfish Gene_
(e.g. [http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary----
Introducti...](http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary----
Introduction/dp/0199291152/) but see if you can find a used copy of an earlier
edition). This is the book that introduced the meme meme.

Biology in general is _tremendously_ useful in providing you with a whole set
of patterns and models of "things that work" (in the proper context, of
course). Studying some college level general biology is recommended if you
haven't already.

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andrewstuart
1998 - stopped being a Microsoft guy and learned to love Linux.

