

Increase Your Depth as a Programmer by Spelunking - saundby
http://catsonkeyboards.blogspot.com/2008/08/increase-your-depth-as-programmer-by.html

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silentbicycle
I really like the term "spelunking" for this.

Pick unexplored corners of toolkit you use, unfamiliar commands, try to learn
a new language out in left field from what you already know, etc. Even if you
don't use them directly, it's good exercise for your mind, and new ideas you
encounter along the way will likely come in handy some day. You never know
when a connection to something seemingly unrelated will click and lead to a
breakthrough. (<http://achewood.com/index.php?date=06132002>)

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ibsulon
A former coworker would go into the bin directory and read through every
command at least once a year, if I remember the exacts correctly. He was also
the best system admin I remember ever seeing.

I believe I have 80% of the java spec read by the same strategy from when I
was a full time java programmer.

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kaens
I agree with the author of this article, but I have to wonder if there are
very many programmers who don't do this?

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silentbicycle
There most definitely are, but the lack of interest in exploration is not
necessarily permanent -- it probably only takes stumbling across one or two
cool things to reward and reinforce curiosity.

Some people in every field lack the skills or motivation to teach themselves,
though programming probably amplifies this difference because there are so
many _new_ things emerging and so many niches, and because with enough
motivation you can often just download an interpreter, toolkit, or live boot
cd and start experimenting with it.

~~~
kaens
I suppose that it's probably a lot different for programmers who didn't start
programming on their own - those whose first exposure to coding some software
was through classes in college or whatnot.

I know that for me, almost all of my knowledge of software development and
knowledge about what tools are available on a linux system, and how they work
(as well as about how the kernel works) came from this process of poking
around, reading what was available to me, and then trying things out.

~~~
silentbicycle
Same here. And MS-DOS before that, and a Commodore 64 before that. :)

The process never ends.

