
I have no idea what I'm doing - nate
http://ninjasandrobots.com/you-need-some-experience
======
delinka
I've had to externalize this behavior since having children: "I don't know.
But we can look it up."

I do this all the time anyway-- need to decompose an audio sample? I have no
clue, but I can read about it ... oh, look FFT. Calculate a loan schedule?
Think I was curious about that several years back ... Google amortization ...
Got it.

My children think I'm a genius (I have a 17yo that still thinks her dad is the
smartest human on the planet) simply because A) I will deduce an answer aloud,
B) admit that it's a guess but plausible, C) research when we get home, and D)
summarize the findings (including my mistakes in deduction) in language they
can understand. And I learn something along the way.

Can't learn past 30? Bullshit. I learn every day and plan to for the remainder
of my life.

~~~
o1iver
It sounds like you are already doing this, but now make sure that you not only
answer your kids' questions, but more importantly teach them your A,B,C,D
research/teaching steps! Give a man a fish, ... :)

------
jlongster
I experienced this over the past two weeks when I was staying up 'til 4 AM
trying to get this project to work: <https://github.com/jlongster/dcpu-lisp>

I knew it was possible because I could compile the program in my head, but
automating that in to a program is a whole different task. Still, the concept
was easy to prove. It was all in the details, and I constantly was reminded
that I had no idea what I was doing. I've never written assembly before, and
barely done any compiler work. Still, over 10 painful nights, it all came
together.

What a rush.

~~~
mikeleeorg
> Still, over 10 painful nights, it all came together. > What a rush.

This. This is exactly why I'll spend 10 painful nights. For that moment of
exhilaration. It's almost like a masochistic adrenaline rush.

------
lotharbot
Constantly feeling like you have no idea what you're doing can be a good
thing.

It means you're constantly putting yourself in position to grow. It means
you're challenging yourself instead of simply falling into a routine. After a
while, it means you know what you're doing in a lot of areas that you wouldn't
have if you'd just stuck to what you know -- so even if you don't know what
you're doing in this specific way, you know what you're doing in a lot of
supporting areas. Because of all the figuring out you've done in the past,
you're able to figure it out this time too.

(This advice is remarkably applicable to parenting, as well.)

~~~
Karunamon
I know exactly what you mean. When I started in my new job (Tier 2 system
admin), everyone around me was so advanced that I felt completely out of my
league for months.

That feeling is beginning to abate just now, almost a year later.

It kind of sucks while you're in the grip of it - and no amount of ensuring
myself "Damnit, Karunamon, you _like_ learning, stop herping the derp"
silenced that little niggling voice that says "Oh god what have I gotten
myself into here, I'm so outclassed it's sad"

------
alexholehouse
Here's the secret which has brought me to some pretty interesting places over
the last 10 years - "Go for the thing you find most interesting, irrespective
of how hard it is".

What does this mean? I'm about to start a job optimizing and developing
algorithms for high performance scientific computing, over 1000s of CPUs and
terabytes of memory. I have _NO IDEA_ how I'm going to do this exactly, but I
also have complete faith that I'll figure it out and will do it well, because
it's a really interesting problem, and figuring stuff out is what I do. It
will make me a better programmer, better equipped to do other things I want to
do, and better prepared for similar work in the future.

If something is easy, it's probably going to become boring. Find something
hard and beat it into oblivion.

------
j45
The smartest developers/people I know don't have to prove they're the smartest
at every step.

They have the comfort to say "I don't know" and "You could be right".

Most importantly, they have an attitude of "I can probably figure something
out that will work".

They rarely say something is not possible. They rarely say no outright.

They more often than not will say "Let me think about it and get back to you."
They understand how delicate an idea is and how valuable it could be.

Being a problem solver every day, coming across new situations and getting
better at it means this mindset is a normal, expected thing.

Problem solving is an optimistic skill, not pessimistic.

Problem solvers live in possibility, tempered by healthy, but not poisoning
doubt.

What does this leave?

Those who are so full of their own doubts that they start to believe in the
insurmountability of their doubts. They turn, like evangelists to spread their
viewpoint and validate their insecurity and bring others down with their
doubts.

I call them, the the doubt worshippers. Blind doubt is as painful as blind
faith to me; especially where creativity and innovation are expected to occur.

Starting with a seed of believing in logical thought and debate, doubters now
feed the monster of doubt, and live and see life through doubts, first,
instead of possibilities tempered by doubts.

Doubters look at everything with what they believe to be a critical eye.
Rather, it is one of doubt seeking to destroy, not tempering possibility so it
may have a chance at succeeding.

Doubters love to play the position of contrarian, having something grand to
say that's generally the opposite of whatever is being said, just to fuel
their doubt muscle. Doubters are generally risk averse. Doubters generally
avoid pushing their limits and growing. Yet, they're so smart and logical and
skeptical.

Still, great things only seem to get accomplished in the realm of possibility
and creativity.

Exclusive doubters kill creativity and innovation.

I generally avoid self-doubting doubters. If a scoffing, smarmy, self-absorbed
know it all can't openly entertain an opinion that isn't theirs, isn't really
as open of a mind as advertised. Logic is a great tool, but it is not where
creativity resides. Doubt and logic can be used to fuel ignorant, stupid,
petty and fanatic ends as easy as anything.

There's too many folks who try to fake it until they make it. They are driven
by managing their insecurities instead of building their strengths.
Unfortunately you can't fake being able to learn the details, see how the dots
could connect and making a new reality that actually works with them.

Find and cherish those who know the balance of living in creative and
innovative possibility and letting the doubts be a healthy, but not ruling
force.

0.05

~~~
daenz
> The doubt worshippers. Starting with a seed of believing in logical thought
> and debate, they now live and see life through doubts, first, instead of
> possibilities tempered by doubts. They look at everything with what they
> believe to be a critical eye, but it is one of doubt, and not possibility.
> Great things only get accomplished in the realm of possibility and
> creativity.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I can't stand these people. I've worked
with one directly. The most frustrating part of the experience is even when
you prove time and time again, that the goals they are so pessimistic about
are achievable, they do not alter their outlook on future goals! It's as if
their only comfort is in predicting failure and then passively ensuring it.

~~~
HalibetLector
I've had similar problems with people who think everything and anything is
possible in just 4 weeks. People with positive attitudes who over-commit a
whole team is bad enough, but when I try to say 'what you're talking about
isn't possible, let's scale back the requirements' I'm told I'm a pessimistic
person. The most frustrating part of the experience in when you prove time and
time again, that the goals they are so optimistic about are more complex than
they think, they do not alter their outlook on future goals! It's as if their
only comfort is in predicting success and then passively ensuring failure and
burnout.

~~~
daenz
Of course when hard time constraints are involved, things actually become
impossible. Even the universe has a fixed limit how far you can go in an
amount of time.

Nobody (besides you) is saying that "scaling back requirements" is
pessimistic. Where is that coming from?

> It's as if their only comfort is in predicting success and then passively
> ensuring failure and burnout.

How is predicting a success and then failing a comfort? Mine was: predicting a
failure and then failing, which would make the prediction a comfort because it
was correct. Yours, as a whole, is not comforting, because it was incorrect.

> The most frustrating part of the experience in when you prove time and time
> again, that the goals they are so optimistic about are more complex than
> they think, they do not alter their outlook on future goals!

That's not exactly a bad thing, considering the alternative. I would so much
rather someone never lose optimism than pessimism, even if they are wrong
every time. With optimism, you're dumb enough to try again. With pessimism,
you're dumb enough to never try.

------
stuartjmoore
I don't think I've ever started a project that I knew how to do backward and
front. Every thing I know about iOS programming comes from "oh crap, a client
wants this, how do I do it?". Although, it makes every past project look worse
and worse every time I start a new one.

Google it 'til you make it.

~~~
kls
It depends on the technology of course but pretty much as fast as most of them
move, most projects are going to involve new technology and a rapid learning
curve to work with it. That being said, I think I am cut from a different
cloth than a lot of developers, there are a lot of technologies that I do not
know and have to pick up quickly but the part that I differ on is it seems
that there are a lot of developers that scramble to adapt, where I never feel
the pressure of that scramble. I can't explain it, but things just kind of
fall into place for me. For any of you old enough to know the reference, I am
kind of a Ferris Bueller like figure, where things appear to come easy for me.
This can drive people crazy at times, my wife included because it appears that
things are easy for me. While I do concern myself with adapting, I just don't
stress about it, as I am confident in my ability to adapt. I personally don't
feel that things are easy for me, rather I feel that things align for me a lot
of times and I capitalize on that momentum. I never read stories from
developers that have similar experiences, so I often wonder if my experience
is an anomaly.

~~~
shurane
Where most people scramble and panic, I take it that you grin, roll up your
sleeves, and say, "Let's get this party started."

That's what I'm envisioning anyway.

~~~
kls
Yes that is probably appropriate, and I think it comes from my world view, I
never see a big problem, I see a bunch of small unknown problems, therefore
everything to me is a small issue, nothing to freak out about. I quickly
figure out what are the deadly problems and fix those first, they are always
small quickly fixed issues, and from their I work to find the issues that lead
to the deadly problems, I think this systematic processes may appear to others
that the pieces fall into place, but they really could have been arranged in a
multitude of orders and the outcome would have been the same. I am very good
at putting blinders on when they are needed and to others this may appear that
I am carefree, rather, I do care, just not at the moment that I am fixing what
I feel is the most important issue to overcome or avoid a crisis.

------
kurtvarner
This is the same thought I had after reading Justin Kan's post
(<http://justinkan.com/what-good-is-experience>). I was surprised by how much
emphasis Justin placed on the importance of experience. I feel one of the best
traits of an entrepreneur is the ability to learn quickly and figure things
out on the fly.

~~~
drumdance
I think it also helps to have (or develop) a high tolerance for ambiguity. You
don't really know where you're going, and something may happen tomorrow that
upends your business model. You have to be okay with that. I think experience
with that process makes it a bit easier to focus on what you _can_ control.

~~~
j45
High tolerance for ambiguity is a wonderful way of putting it. The people who
can't play with abstract ideas and concepts simply can't do this.

------
nsns
Dogen, the Japanese Zen philosopher has said (in the context of study and
practice): "For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean
where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks
circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or
square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like
a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. All things
are like this." (quoted from this translation - <http://genjokoan.com/>)

I know a translator who once had a conversation with another, 70 years old,
translator, my friend complained how with each book she translates her
perception of language becomes murkier, the elderly translator replied, "you
still have it good, I have to check the meaning of 'table' in the dictionary."

My point: with experience things become more complex, not vice versa.
Certainty is usually a mark of naivety.

------
tonyjwang
I assume, perhaps wrongly, that there are more efficient methods of becoming
an entrepreneur than pure trial-and-error and plugging oneself into
HackerNews, Quora, and irc channels, and reading books. People always ask,
where do I begin? What's the most efficient way of doing X?

I'd love to see a mind map, or even a basic checklist, of all the skills you
need in a typical startup and the different options for gaining that skill.
Maybe I'm being too picky and demanding, but knowing what you know and what
you don't know would be a nice efficient alternative to "I don't know what the
heck I'm doing. Grit FTW!"

~~~
AnthonyJoseph
In my experience, I think you are assuming wrongly. The efficiency comes from
speed, and nothing else in my opinion. It could be because I am too dumb to
grasp theory, and can not learn without doing and failing/succeeding and then
subsequently learning from the outcomes (be it good or bad), but the most
efficient way is to speed up the doing, speed up the getting to an outcome,
speeding up the learning , and then speeding up the full cycle.

------
decadentcactus
I definitely agree with the end of this. There's been many times where I've
come up against something I need to learn - a new technology, technique,
library integration, and wondered how I could figure it out.

Then I remember, years ago, thinking the same thing about the things I'm doing
now. How I thought Python looked fancy and confusing, how configuring servers
was arcane, and how I took hours to make a page POST a value to another page.
And update a database (with no range checking, so that went into negatives,
but it _worked_).

Now I can reasonably assume that given enough effort, I can figure almost
anything out.

------
Sindrome
I've found that most people don't know what they are doing. Which as you
pointed out is fine. But what I find very alarming is that most people don't
ever take the time to mend their ignorance.

I've also found that since people rarely know why they are doing... The ones
that can bullshit the best are viewed as more competent. These are the worst
perpetrators of the ignorance issue. These are the people that become the
token useless over compensated middle mananger.

------
sidman
Great post dude and i think i can relate to many of the situations you found
yourself in. Hell every time i finish a module or feature on my current
project i am always like ... What the hell ... It actually works. I do this
because i remember not 5hrs or a day ago, i had no freaking idea what i was
doing, the VIM screen was empty and had no idea where to start or how to solve
what i wanted to do (specially if its a new language, new team or new
technology your working with). Team always tells me to sit down and get back
to work (jokingly) after i joyously get up and do fist pumps but i get happy
when i have no experience in something but manage to stumble over things until
i get it to work, cause the joy is not simply the thing works, its that i feel
having no experience and getting something working no matter what the topic of
concern is, is a big deal, whether its programming, math or traveling the
world by your self when you have never left the house. It is a big deal ...

Right now though, i am working on a startup, just small, making some revenue
to live of but finding it tough, very very tough, competition is aplenty,
constant new technical problems ,design choices, no idea how to market cause
just no experience (so far its been organic but we need a faster rate of
growth)and i can honestly say this feels like it could be a particular case
where i might not be able to make it out with a smile on my face. In all the
other problems i had no experience with, i got this voice in my head that
says, mate... you will do this no problems, you will get the problem solved
but for this startup the voice is there but just not as strong cause its been
told to shutup in more then one instance when things didn't turn out as
planned. However, since I know in the past when i kept going things turned out
alright I just keep going.

For a startup, there are just so many fronts that need some experience and as
far as i can think back , I only ever had to face a single topic at a time for
which I didn't have experience. Some examples have been when I worked on new
math or programming problem or studying for any exam, solving a problem at
work that is more inter personal, asking for a raise when i had never asked
for one before, its all just one thing so its easier to focus all the
attention on how to make that single thing work. But for a startup there are
just so many fronts that experience would really help to make the event of
starting a startup successful. Its painful sometimes ...

I guess this is the first step towards getting more experience :) and hey ..
its fun

------
laaph
Some things you can figure it out as you are doing. Some times I think being
in software development is cheating as I can do that in many cases.

But in most cases, I think you can do great harm and likely waste a lot of
time (but probably learn a lot!) if you just go along blindly without having
some clue of what you are doing. To take an extreme example, you really don't
want to be in the air as your pilot is reading a "Flying airplanes for
dummies" book.

And he uses being in a class as an example! If you knew what you were doing
already, you wouldn't need to be taking the class!

Having said that, I also believe that much of the time, no amount of
preparation can prepare you for what you need to do. You still need to figure
out many things on the fly, and frequently, you don't learn those things until
you actually do them.

------
jgv
Ben Pieratt, CEO of Svpply, shared a similar sentiment in this great blog post
last year: [http://pieratt.tumblr.com/post/5450242474/my-job-
pt-1-i-have...](http://pieratt.tumblr.com/post/5450242474/my-job-pt-1-i-have-
no-idea-what-im-doing)

------
cynthiaherald
Reminds me of a theme that many historical icons embodied....a sense of self-
education. But on a daily basis.

Ben Franklin was a self taught printer, scientist, etc...who went on to become
world-renowned for each profession. He had no formal education or schooling
either.

~~~
jarek
Name the last self-taught great scientist or mathematician, and the year of
their birth.

~~~
bartonfink
Srinivasa Ramanujan, 1887.

------
orky56
It's all about perspective. As a lifelong learner, you're gonna have the highs
of discovering an insight and the lows of realizing your ignorance. If you
have the right mindset and character, then it's a challenge and up to you to
deal with those highs and lows properly. Celebrate those wins, use that
momentum and motivate yourself with those lows. Personally, what gives me the
most problems is when there is too much of a gap in time or other resources
and I lose that momentum. Getting over that inertia and rediscovering that
spark for that subject or project can be difficult. Once I find it though,
there's no stopping me!

------
demetris
It baffles me that people who seem to pay careful attention to the appearance
of their websites are so careless with their fonts:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/3mi5ecf8xguccl4/20120424-025233-ni...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3mi5ecf8xguccl4/20120424-025233-ninjasandrobots.com-
you-need-some-experience-proxima-nova-windows7-firefox12.png)

The allure of web fonts becomes stronger and stronger as availability and
implementations improve, but people need to be careful: there are very few
choises that work well everywhere.

~~~
petercooper
Unfortunately, Windows' hideous rendering of web fonts in general is nothing
new. I'm not sure why it's such a tricky problem, as even Linux does a better
job.

------
IceCreamYou
Nate, the thing is, you do know what you're doing. You'd be having no fun if
you were just doing things you already knew how to accomplish. You are
intentionally choosing to do things where you know you will have to learn in
order to achieve them. It's not that you are clueless, you just know how to
achieve things you haven't already learned how to do.

You know how to learn. You know how and more importantly when to search on
Google (which a shocking number of people don't). You know how to try things.

I wouldn't call that having no idea.

------
loahou04
I always get stuck on new things and just get absolutely frustrated over
things that i have no idea what i'm doing. I find taking a break and then
coming back to it usually helps. The funny thing is once you figure it out you
cant ever see how it didnt click in the first place

------
dkersten
_It took about 12 floppy disks. :)_

Java is about four times that size (for a minimal distribution) nowadays.

~~~
jarek
Only because we've decided as a profession that optimizing for binary size is
low priority when compared to speed of development, maintainability, and
framework's features, among others.

~~~
gaius
Nah, no-one made that decision. We just all got lazy.

~~~
jarek
We made the decision collectively. By being lazy, in a good way.

------
mmccomb
There's no harm in admitting that you don't know what you're doing, heck it's
a healthy attitude to take. It's when you head down the other path and don't
acknowledge you're ineptitude or need for education/learning that things start
to go wrong.

------
taude
This is why one of the most important skills I look for in dev-types is their
ability to learn and figure s#$t out. It's not only what you know today, but
that you don't know what you don't know tomorrow, but you've gotta figure it
out.

------
numeromancer
A new game for HN commenters: “Guess that reference”. A poster gives a
relevant but maybe slightly obscure quote from literature and others try to
guess where it's from. Here's mine:

“Do any of us know what we're doing? If we did, would we ever do it?”

------
guynamedloren
Nate - did you talk about startups at UIUC circa 2010? If so, you
(inadvertently) introduced me to the world of startups as well as the YC
community, and for that, I am grateful. Life changing stuff - you have no
idea.

------
evilswan
So true. I have never, ever taken a job I knew how to do (fully). I blagged
it, and learned it all on the job.

------
jonny_eh
Fake it 'til you make it baby!

~~~
nullflux
Not really. In that situation you're telling people you know how to do
something you don't. In this situation you're telling people you have no idea
but can probably figure it out.

------
n00bmach1ne
related: On being senior <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3883494>

~~~
gaius
I've lost count of the number of 22-year-old "seniors" I've met. It's a red
flag word now, for title inflation.

------
nelmaven
This is inspiring read!

------
ojr
Power to the creators!

------
robatsu
The optimistic viewpoint going into the unknown, i.e, the confidence that the
answer is out there somewhere and you will find it, is one of the, if not the,
most important success factors in any sort of greenfield venture.

I'm an older guy and even years ago when looking back, things that I just
assumed would work out, even though an objective observer would perhaps
disagree, always seemed to have more or less unfolded according to plan. It is
almost as if life is much like some evil jungle vine that wraps and
immobilizes one the more you struggle against it.

Here is one personal example - I was born into a family that valued education,
it was always assumed that the kids were going to college - this was a little
before the now current assumption that everyone goes to college.

Well, I hated school from junior high onward with an abiding passion and
finally quit at the first available opportunity at the beginning of 10th
grade. But it never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and I did,
pretty much on schedule w/my peers (and I paid for it..) getting a BS in
physics, MS in Computational Fluids/Mech Engrg.

Again, it just never really occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college as I
was bailing from high school, kind of weird in retrospect. But I never even
slightly doubted the outcomes - not in a defiant way, either, just a low key
assumption.

And again, looking back, I can find many other examples my life or other
peoples lives that follow this pattern.

I don't know if there is a term for this mindset, but I see allusions to it
both in the OP and in many of the other comments here.

