
Dunning-Kruger - tylermenezes
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/86f910e35a8f
======
JumpCrisscross
Dunning & Kruger (1999) [1] studies individuals' perceived and actual
performances in humour, grammar, and logic. It observed that the gap between
expectation and reality was inversely predicted by competence. The authors
conclude that "people tend to hold overly favourable views of their abilities
in many social and intellectual domains". C'est tout.

The implied mis-interpretation of Dunning & Kruger, that inability and
confidence are correlated, is as commonplace as it is untrue. The Dunning &
Kruger cohort which estimated its humour at the top quartile _did_ perform in
the top-quartile. And the cohort which estimated its humour in the bottom
quartile did, too, perform the worst. It's just that the top quartile
estimated itself at 75 when it came out at 90 while the bottom estimated
itself at 60 when it performed at 10. We are good at relative evaluation. What
we suck at is pinning that to an absolute scale.

" _Several of my teachers [said] I’d gotten far too arrogant...this caused me
to once again return to my previous mode of thinking. I wasn't actually a good
programmer._ "

One can be a good programmer and arrogant. The former refers to technical
competence. The latter to social competence.

[1] [http://www.psoriasissociety.ttsg.org/pdfs/Dunning-
Kruger%20E...](http://www.psoriasissociety.ttsg.org/pdfs/Dunning-
Kruger%20Effect.pdf)

~~~
neeson
Thank you. The unintentional irony of people who've completely misinterpreted
a very short, accessible paper and then try to use it to make fun of other
people's intelligence...

~~~
haberman
If only I had a quarter for every time I've seen the "Dunning-Krueger effect"
Wikipedia page linked in an embarrassingly self-serving and condescending way.
It makes me cringe every time.

If you feel like cringing a lot, check out:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=link:http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikiped...](https://www.google.com/search?q=link:http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDunning%25E2%2580%2593Kruger_effect)

------
jere
I think you may be missing the point here. I'm sure you _are_ a great
engineer. And Impostor Syndrome and Dunning-Kruger are definitely phenomena
you need to know. But the vicious response probably comes from a concern that
is completely orthogonal to how good you are:

Humility. People expect you to be humble. Even if you were the cleverest
hacker on Earth, readers are not going to take kindly to you giving yourself
kudos, even if it is something as small as being a "great engineer." I know
hubris is one of great virtues of programmers, but I would contend that
humility is a great virtue of _writers._ It's why self deprecation is so
common in writing and comedy. You poke fun at yourself to make the audience
feel more comfortable. Do the opposite (call yourself great) and you may be
triggering impostor syndrome _for your readers._

Secondly, saying that Facebook is in the wrong because you are awesome....
well, that reminds me of another social norm: "The First Rule of Programming:
It's Always Your Fault" I won't elaborate any further. I think Atwood has this
one covered:

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/03/the-first-rule-
of-p...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/03/the-first-rule-of-
programming-its-always-your-fault.html)

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/08/why-im-the-best-
pro...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/08/why-im-the-best-programmer-
in-the-world.html)

By the way, I want to say that Zuckerberg's claim in the code.org video that
Facebook's strategy is to literally hire as many talented engineers as
possible is bullshit. Obviously, that's not their strategy.

~~~
readme
Why would someone want to be humble?

Lets look at the definition:

    
    
        hum·ble  /ˈhəmbəl/
    
        Adjective
    
        Having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance.
    

When you're telling someone to be humble, what you're really doing is saying
"You're not important, and I want you to know that."

To even say that requires some pretension on your own behalf.

People should not have a "low estimate" of their own importance. They should
have an accurate one, and it's their business to come up with it. Not anyone
else's.

~~~
DanBC
That is one definition of 'humble'. Another is

> not proud or arrogant; modest: _to be humble although successful._

And another is

> courteously respectful: _In my humble opinion you are wrong._

Both of which seem, IMHO, to be more relevant to the thread than the
definition you provide.

~~~
josephlord
> courteously respectful: In my humble opinion you are wrong.

Maybe it is because I'm English but does anyone say that when they are really
being humble? I would assume sugar coating at best and dripping sarcasm at
worst.

Admittedly it isn't as bad as "with all due respect" followed by something
indicating how little respect is considered due.

------
groby_b
Arrogance doesn't make you a bad programmer. It, in general, makes you a
person that others don't like to be around. And if you want to get hired by a
large company, likability is part of the package. Not because it's a
popularity contest, but because those other people there will need to spend 8
hours every week day with you.

I _know_ your story - I've not been exactly popular in HS either. I did not
excel at quite a few thing. Like you, for a while I thought I could gain more
confidence by loudly proclaiming my superiority when I actually _was_ better
at things than my peers.

All that creates is resentment. The best piece of advice I ever got - and it
might well be meaningless to you, but let me share anyways - was that "Actions
speak louder than words".

Go forth, do great stuff. _Help_ other people achieve greatness. Be judicious
when you do and don't mention your achievements. (I'm not saying to never toot
your horn, but do it by choice, to make a salient point). And never, ever,
call yourself "great". There are few truly greats in any profession. Aspire to
be one. You'll know you're there once others refer to you by that label.

~~~
j_baker
I personally say that if someone wants to refer to themselves as a great
programmer, and they have at least _some_ reason to believe that, they should
find people to work with who are willing to put up with their arrogance.
Everyone has a vice. Is a bit of arrogance really _that_ big a deal?

~~~
groby_b
Yes.

Because soliciting constructive criticism is a rather important part of being
a good engineer, and arrogance will get in the way of that.

And of course, working with somebody who rejects constructive criticism but
loves doling it out (a characteristic quite commonly associated with
arrogance) is plain annoying. So nobody wants to.

~~~
j_baker
_Nobody_ wants to? I don't believe that. I would believe that _you_ don't want
to, which is fine. But why must you state that in such moralistic and absolute
terms?

------
danso
I missed the HN discussion that inspired the OP to write this. Here it is:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5278389>

> _I’m not really surprised at the extent of that response, either, but it is
> disappointing. I avoided the comments on Hacker News, which tend to attack
> the simplest parts of an article, to avoid getting into stupid arguments._

Hmm...I guess if he _did_ read that HN thread, he would've seen that most of
the comments sympathized with him about puzzles. But I guess a great engineer
can just instinctively pre-judge things and be right without double checking.

~~~
alexanderh
Yea I was surprised to see this response. I totally sympathized with him.

I totally glossed over the part where he was boastful.

I think the response he got, and responded too, had more to do with the
article being more popular than he's ever delt with before, then it did with
anything he specifically said.

Its the internet, when you reach a wide audience, haters are indeed going to
hate. You just have to ignore it.

------
ricardobeat
TL;DR yes, I reaffirm I am a great programmer, everyone else has imposter
syndrome, but I don't. haters gonna hate.

"Great" programmer or not, both posts are pointless and this attitude will not
do him any favors. Overcoming the underdog mentality is good, but being so
self-centered is at the other end of the spectrum.

    
    
        ar.ro.gan.ce
        offensive display of superiority or self-importance; 
        overbearing pride; proud contempt of others

------
rbkillea
I have to stop reading these medium.com articles. They are making me deeply
saddened, are sapping away my time and energy in minute quantities, and are
probably decreasing my peak intelligence/output.

------
georgemcbay
I missed the original "Facebook Lost a Great Engineer" post until now. I agree
with a lot of what was said in both posts, I think puzzles are generally a bad
way to hire and they get especially dangerous the more senior an engineer is
(the longer they are out of school or out of the initial learning phase if
they are self-taught, the more such questions are detached from day to day
development and thus you're only testing if the developer has been practicing
to interview lately, not whether he or she will be an effective developer).

However, this statement from the "Great Engineer" post struck me the wrong
way:

"I would fire any developer who chose to re-implement standard library
functions."

That's a terribly absolute stance to take -- consider, for example the widely-
discussed fast inverse square root:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root>

That was a re-implementation of a standard function (rsqrt), but for a very
good reason (speed was more important than accuracy for the use case). While
that specific trick is mostly obsolete in development today, if you're pushing
the envelope even a little bit with your code, it isn't that rare to run into
a situation in which it makes sense to side step the standard library
implementation of something.

tl; dr - Developers (at least non-Sith ones) should never deal in absolutes.

~~~
stcredzero
Is there a Sith developer blog? It would fit with Fred Brook's pilot-
copilot/operating room organization.

------
DanBC
He makes a reasonable point about undue hostility in online communities.

That other thread? The article did come across as a little bit arrogant. Not
the fun charismatic arrogant either, just arrogant. Still, this article puts
that in context.

And threads about puzzle questions are always weird.

You get one camp saying it's not about the answers, it's about the process of
answering. When you see a sequence of numbers it's not about whether you
happened to see that sequence on Wikipedia last month (and still remember it),
but whether you can describe your process of trying to see how it's made.

You then get another camp who just can't seem to understand that the answers
don't matter; who say that puzzles test for people who are lucky enough to
have seen the puzzle before and don't test for good programmers. (Puzzles
probably don't test for good programming, but they're not meant to.)

------
calhoun137
Confidence is a funny thing: you can't succeed if you don't have it, and you
can't have it if you don't succeed.

In poker, a game which I am not unfamiliar with, it's well understood that
having confidence, even apparent arrogance, is a significant strategic factor
which can dramatically improve a players results. The example of poker is
relevant as an analogy both for getting through an interview, and getting
money from an investor; both activities involve a similar degree of imperfect
information.

Having confidence helps prevent you from making bad decisions or constantly
second guessing yourself when you experience significant variance, it
intimidates your opponents and causes them to make mistakes which work to your
advantage, and it can drive you to push yourself harder to learn and improve
than you would if you didn't think it was possible to succeed.

~~~
RivieraKid
Staying calm and rational is an important psychological factor on poker.
Confidwnce is not very relevant.

~~~
calhoun137
[http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-strategy/the-pros-of-
conf...](http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-strategy/the-pros-of-confidence)

[http://www.learn2holdem.com/poker-strategy/confidence-in-
onl...](http://www.learn2holdem.com/poker-strategy/confidence-in-online-
poker.htm)

[http://www.poker1.com/archives/14247/mike-caro-poker-word-
is...](http://www.poker1.com/archives/14247/mike-caro-poker-word-is-
confidence)

------
amadeus
Why is this petty shit on the front page? Who gives a fuck?

------
smoyer
I hope I wasn't one of those your felt put you down ... and I think if we were
sitting across the table, we'd probably reach an agreement on what we thought
about your skills. I think today's article is an argument for being honest
with yourself about your skill level. I'm never going break a 3 hour marathon,
but that's not why I run.

On the other hand, the paragraph "When I graduated high school, I was an okay
programmer. Last year, I was a good programmer. After a lot of work, I’m a
great programmer, or at least pretty close to it. I don’t think I’ll ever
become an amazing programmer or any other superlative; I’m not that talented."
came so close. What I'm interested in hearing from any candidate is what
follows that thought ... "Tomorrow I'll be better than today".

------
lrivers
I think most hiring practices are seriously broken. I love the approach
Heineken took in this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Ftu3NbivE>

------
codex
I'd like to coin a new effect, "Pop Psych Geek Blogger Effect", which
describes the tendency of bloggers to write about pop psychology, which is
catnip to geeks, and the tendency of these posts to be upvoted.

------
cpt1138
<https://twitter.com/mariofusco/status/47988950903693312>

------
gopalv
Humility only works internally.

Believing you can do anything often leads you find out it's only partly true.

But believing you can't do anything is often true all the time.

I blame my parents for misleading me there, but they meant well & it only took
a decade to for me to find out.

<http://notmysock.org/blog/philosophy/arrogance-of-essence>

------
nasalgoat
Get over yourself.

------
SethMurphy
Proclaiming a judgment of yourself is always tricky. It's like coming up with
your own "good" nickname because you don't want a bad one. If you are great
fine, but remember there are always greater, and always make sure to continue
to strive to be better. Don't worry about self proclamation it just gets in
your way, let others proclaim it for you.

------
paranoiacblack
Maybe the reason why the community clings to imposter syndrome is so they can
focus on getting interesting work done instead of writing self-important blog
posts.

------
OGC
So this guy basically told me he's great anyway. Despite external feedback
telling him to turn down his arrogance. And ending with "haters gonna hate" (+
oscar wilde pic). Jerk moar HN.

