
Ask HN:  Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit? - photon_off
Sometimes when I start reading HN comments I get the overwhelming feeling that I am not even a tiny drop in the giant ocean of talent, knowledge, drive, determination, skill, and genius that collectively contributes to this site.  I have my own ideas that I love dearly and work on, the first of which will be released for you all to play around with and break at the end of the week, but I <i>never</i> leave HN without feeling that no matter what I do, it will never be as good as what I've just read about.  I have my own skills, I got a BS degree from a decent school in Comp Sci a few years ago, and still I barely work with anything other than LAMP and frontend stuff and frequently find myself having no clue as to what some of the submissions and discussions on this site are about.<p>It affects me on a more personal level than I'd like to admit, but I'll do anyway as a way to get it out of my system and see what you all think.  I'm a lone "founder" of several websites that I finished up to 80%, then left to collect dust, and am now tidying up to display on a resume since I'm essentially out of money.  Whenever I come here and read the articles and discussions I feel like my ideas, and myself by extension are absolute shit for several reasons.<p>1) So many talented people here.  I don't know the slightest thing about any other language besides Javascript, PHP, Java (from school), and MySQL.  I'm 25.  I work on a Windows XP box and use an IDE because I like the code completion.  I consider myself damn good at the languages I listed, but I get the impression that people here are damn good at way more than this.<p>2) HN shows me all these people and ideas that are succeeding.  It used to be inspirational, but now it's frightening.  I've always been told I'm a smart kid, and that I'll be a millionaire some day, and all of that shit.  I see these ideas gaining traction, some of which I could never be able to do myself, some of which I could have done overnight, and I see myself staying still.  It's overwhelming.<p>3) There are people that post here that are so smart.  There are people here that can express their ideas so clearly.  There are people here that know so much about so many things.  And there's me... I'm not really able to contribute much.  How am I to believe I'm any good at anything?  If you all are to be my competitors, I should just give up now.<p>At any rate, I'm just curious to see if anybody gets the same feelings of being overwhelmed by the amount of awesomeness that's on this site.  Thanks.
======
pg
You have to consider the number of users. HN now gets 60k unique visitors on
weekdays. That's a decent sized stadium full of people. Of course they seem
overwhelming collectively, but most individuals are only experts in a few
areas.

If it makes you feel any better, my biggest worry about this site is the
opposite: that the median awesomeness is decreasing as the number of users
increases.

If you want to feel less overwhelmed, try reading the comments starting at the
bottom of the page instead of the top.

~~~
photon_off
While writing, it occurred to me that this might be the primary effect. There
appears to be some sort of counter in my head that counts awesome comments.
There is no counter, however, for number of awesome users, or number non-
awesome comments. I ignore them without effort. But due to this selection
bias, the awesomeness counter gets to such a big number that it's quite
overwhelming, and it feels that 100% of comments are awesome.

I suppose I can accept the fact that the majority of people don't represent
anything to get flustered about. However, there _are_ people way more talented
than me, doing much more important-seeming (that is to say, things that are
getting more attention) things, and in general just being more successful than
I. I truly mean it when I say "good for them," but it eats away at me.
Quarter-life crisis I suppose.

I was on this site as a different name over a year ago and have recently
returned. I can tell you that I noticed a pretty significant difference in the
quality of users now on this site. There are more low/medium quality comments,
and the quips aren't as clever. What's more concerning is the upvote counts on
those comments...

That being said, there's no other place I'd rather be.

~~~
galois
What makes you think you're talented? You say people have always told you you
were a smart kid. Do you have any actual achievements to back this up?

I come on here and find that the vast majority of people are well below my
intelligence level. I find that this site is basically a bunch of talentless
wantrepreneurial pundits. I come on here to test my patience with idiotic
circlejerks - praise Apple, bash Facebook, on and on. Most people I know with
real talent feel similarly about HN. Heck, I even know YC guys who feel this
way about it.

~~~
cwilson
Judging by the rest of your comments on this site you're far too intelligent
to be commenting here in the first place, so why keep at it? My hunch is that
you find enjoyment in talking about how intelligent you are and making others
feel less intelligent then you. That or you have something to prove as a
result of being inadequate your entire life, but internally, you just know how
brilliant you are and have to shout it from the rooftops while bringing down
others.

I'm curious, what have you accomplished that's so great? Do YOU have any
achievements to back up your arrogance?

I'd venture to say that you're actually not that intelligent at all. An
intelligent person would realize striking a balance between radiating their
inner brilliance and being a modest and kind person is necessary in life. You
have clearly not yet learned that lesson.

Intelligence won't get you very far when no one wants to work with you because
you're a huge dick to everyone around you.

~~~
dkersten
_Judging by the rest of your comments on this site you're far too intelligent_

What comments are you talking about? The ones I see are either retarded,
extremely arrogant (but not intelligent), or about average (relative to other
comments on this site). From his previous comments, I would guess hes of
average intelligence, for this site, but EXTREMELY arrogant. Not really a
desirable combination, if you ask me.

~~~
lobo-tuerto
He was being a little bit sarcastic about it. ;)

~~~
dkersten
Well, that does make more sense.

------
neilk
One of your problems is that you are judging yourself by your natural
abilities. I think this a trap that a lot of smart people fall into, perhaps
being used to being the kid who always gets the gold star. There are studies
that show that children who are praised for being "smart" stop working hard,
because that threatens their self-image. Children who are praised for working
hard go on to greater successes.

But back to HN. Recall that people post here, in part, to feel good about
themselves and appear smart to others. It may be that the real heroes are not
here. They are off doing stuff, not yammering about it.

I've been lucky enough to meet a lot of successful web startup people (a
different group from say, pg or other YC alumni). I can tell you that the only
thing they have in common is that they Keep Doing Stuff. No matter what, Keep
Doing Stuff. They often have very low tolerance for naysayers and armchair
critics. This isn't so much iron determination (well it is, in part) but
mostly because they are motivated by the _intrinsic_ rewards of building and
exploring. In other words: they are just trying to have fun.

Their initial prototypes are ugly and naive. They don't care because it does
something they wanted. They use a language that others deride as a toy. They
don't care because it gets the job done fast. At launch, the whole thing is
held together with tinkertoys and chewing gum. They still don't care as long
as it's making people happy. Then scaling problems happen. Then they hunker
down and make even more spectacular mistakes.

And you know what? Then one day they look back on at all they've done, and the
system is humming beautifully and they're experts in multiple fields. And
O'Reilly starts bugging them to write a book about how they did it all so
effortlessly.

Meanwhile those guys on HN are still whining about how it would have been so
much better with a functional language and a NoSQL data store.

\--

P.S. This is not an argument for doing anything sloppily. It's just that you
have to be laser-focused on results. It's a paradox; you have to be _capable_
of rolling out something of heart-breaking beauty but also have no concern for
things that ultimately don't affect success. It's been my experience that the
version 1.0 of anything really creative looks like a piece of _junk_. And it
takes a very sharp eye to see that it's doing something new and important. I
guess this is why not everybody is a successful investor.

~~~
heresy
That's one problem with reading too much into people's commentary and ideas
here. It's been through so many filters.

Who knows how long they spent refining that comment?

Seeing the end product is always more impressive than the beginning.

At least personally, if something I did is "good", it's because its been
through a couple of iterations, you can bet it was ugly as sin first time
round.

The problem is that you often don't get to see the intermediate steps.

Prototype -> MAGIC HAPPENS -> Polished Product

The MAGIC HAPPENS portion is what I find really interesting, you can learn a
lot about how people think if you get to see how they refine their ideas over
time.

And it's all sweat equity. Always. Don't let people try to bullshit you that
it's not. If I've learned one thing from many people smarter and more
successful than I am, its that they're always doing something moving them to
their goals, and they never give up no matter how many times they fail.

~~~
jtheory
There's also that horrible effect that your own ideas, however creative,
original and interesting, can start to feel trite, shallow and old after a
little while. Because, guess what, they've been floating around your head
longer than anyone's, and you keep seeing them, picking over them, looking for
weak points.

Whereas someone else's idea that they've been knocking around for a few months
will seem breathtakingly new and fresh, and as if it had popped forth fully
formed from their head yesterday.

The difference here is simply whose head you're in.

This can be a very serious problem for writers -- if you spend years writing a
novel, by the time it's finally coming together, you want to rewrite all of
the early stuff just because it seems so overused by now....

------
loganfrederick
I sympathize with your feelings. Coming to HN can instantly humble anyone who
previously believed (s)he is smart, talented, destined for greatness, etc.
when you see what truly brilliant people are like. I know it gave me a good
reality check and sense of my relative knowledge compared to all the potential
things to learn.

But you've taken the wrong lessons out of it. Don't view it as a community of
people better and smarter than you, see it as a wealth of knowledge like a
library.

Don't view the people here as your competition. View them as people with
something to teach you.

Intelligence is not a zero-sum game. No one will prevent your success because
they are "smarter" than you. The more educated, energized, and ethical people
in the world, the better for us all. Take what HN has to offer and apply it to
what makes you happy and what will bring you fulfillment and success.

------
lionhearted
Good! This is a good thing! _You're feeling sick to your stomach that you're
not living up to your potential_ \- good that you come here to post this. Most
people _fight this feeling down with distraction, intoxication, or otherwise
tuning out._

You're doing something about it. This is fantastic. If you want, email me a
reasonably short email and tell me what your goals and projects are, I'll
recommend you some reading and give you some advice. Spend 5-10 minutes
thinking about your core life goals before writing me, and feel free to put in
a couple specific projects as well. I'd be happy to be of service, I admire
people who confront themselves and reality.

I love when I get that sick to my stomach feeling, it means I'm about to do
some great things. Don't fight it. Drop me a line if you like, my email is in
my profile.

~~~
cabalamat
> _If you want, email me a reasonably short email and tell me what your goals
> and projects are, I'll recommend you some reading and give you some advice._

Or post to the group; there's plenty of people here able to give sound advise.

------
etherael
On the contrary, no community I've ever known in my life has ever made me feel
so empowered.

The "real world" is packed with people who will belittle and disregard your
achievements and abilities, you will be told again and again that people like
you will simply be replaced by counterparts in a third world country willing
to do what you do for sixteen hours a day at five dollars per hour. This comes
from fear and ignorance but is so universal amongst the general populace that
you can start wondering if they might be onto something.

A community like this is concrete evidence that they are dead wrong; That what
we do matters, and that it is not wrong to take pleasure and pride in it. It
betrays the attempts to sideline the work and misdirect attention to the
importance of politics and salesmanship, neither of which have any spoils to
be arguing over or peddling respectively in the absence of the essential
process of making wealth and not just money.

Most of all it makes me not hate the world like I used to, because it shows me
what humans can be and not what they seem to be when I stand in a random room
in meatspace and take a look around.

~~~
Slackwise
Indeed, I scrolled down hoping to find this sentiment. HN is one of the few
venues I know where I can find worthwhile discussion. If anything, it combats
my general misanthropy that everyone is stupid around me--at least here I
learn something rather than feel like I have to correct another bad common
misconception.

On that note, does anyone know any other good news/discussion sites similar to
HN?

------
patio11
I would suggest competng with yourself rather than other people. I cannot
write a fuzzer in C, have conversations in French, or buy a house with my
petty cash. Many here can do these things. I can, however, totally paste the
25 year old me in web app programming, marketing, etc. Start pasting
yesterday's you today.

------
Zev
Just remember, however many smart people there are on HN, there are just as
many people who are very nice and more than willing to share what they know.
And thats my favorite thing about HN; if I ever have a question about
something (that I read here or otherwise), I know that I can come and ask and
get an answer. If you ever have any questions about something you read, I'd
strongly encourage you to ask it as well.

Or in general, really. Not just on HN. Learning and asking questions isn't
something that should be scary.

As for your three points:

1\. Those are three useful languages to know. Especially Javascript. Don't be
so quick to put down what you do know; someone else will _always_ know more
than you. Good for them. Ask them a question, learn something from them.

My personal belief is that you have to like what you do to be good at it. And
people like to talk about things they like. So, don't be surprised if someone
is willing to talk to you about your question :)

2\. I don't mean to be harsh, but it sounds like the only thing stopping you
from having a bunch of neat ideas to show off is, well, you. It sounds like
you've _started_ a few ideas. Why not _finish_ them up as well?

A very good friend of mine is fond of saying (something along the lines of):
"If you pretend to be something long enough, you'll eventually find that
you've become what you were pretending to be." If you have 80% done (or even
50%), thats a start. Keep going and you'll wind up with something to show for
it. Then you'll find that you've turned into one of those people that you
aspired to be like.

3\. Everyone had to start somewhere. Some people started earlier and others
later. Some people can pick certain things up quicker than others. Thats no
reason to be so harsh on yourself. And not everyone is working on the same
idea.

And even within the same idea, there's always going to be plenty of room for
multiple companies. YC has funded companies in the same area before. There's
hundreds of Twitter clients out there. Don't ever let "Well, someone else is
doing this..." stop you.

~~~
patrickk
_"Don't ever let "Well, someone else is doing this..." stop you._ "

I take this as confirmation that my idea has some merit. It someone else is
building it, it must be a real problem/pain point in people's lives.

I independently thought of a semi-decent concept (IMO) and googled similar
terms, to discover that there were startups out there with near identical
ideas, and already well along the path of execution. I console myself that at
one stage Google was taking on Yahoo! and Microsoft when everyone thought
search was done (i.e. an unsexy, overlooked field).

------
lsc
you are 25. is this your first 'big pond' experience?

I mean, yeah, it's hard. When I was 20, I got an opportunity to work with some
of the best people in my business. (I got the guy who hired me to write a
preface to my book... In it, he calls me a 'dumbass kid' which pretty much
sums up the situation.)

I did okay at the job until the company crashed (In about 2001, you see) as
the pressure went up, I couldn't deal with it. I felt like I was not remotely
qualified to work there, or really in the industry at all, and that I was the
reason why the company was doing so poorly. I ended up quitting, and taking
several months off to road trip. This, of course, ended when I ran out of
money, and when I found that working at a coffee shop was more likely to
require a degree, it seemed, than getting another SysAdmin gig. I ended up
getting a job at a local ASP, and not doing any thing else notable until I
started my own company a few years later.

In retrospect, I handled the situation all wrong. The company survived, and if
I toughed it out, I would probably be another 3 years ahead in my career right
now, and I'd be much closer to the incredibly awesome contacts I made there.

But, the point is, there are always going to be people who are better than you
are, and if you can work around those people, do so. you will learn a lot. On
the other hand, going from a small pond where you get to be the big fish to
the big pond, where there will always be people with whom you simply will
never be able to compete, is, well, quite an emotional shock.

If you are a healthy person, you will eventually come to accept and appreciate
people who are better than you without getting the feeling that your ego just
got kicked in the nads. On the other hand, if this is your first 'big pond'
experience, the blow to the ego is very common and generally something that
should be expected. You can get over it.

------
loewenskind
Do you ever watch Formula One? You know that guy who always finishes at the
end of pack that everyone laughs at? He's the (~)20th fastest driver on this
planet. Imagine how _he_ feels.

EDIT: People are getting hung up on the specifics here, so let me expand a
bit: If you are, say, the 20th best at _anything_ then how you feel about
yourself depends on where you look. If you only look forward you'll be
thinking "good greif, there are NINETEEN people in front of me, I suck!". If
you only look behind you'll think you're the greatest. Just look at all the
billions behind you.

I think the key is a healthy combination of looking forward for motivation
("Just 19 more to go!") and behind for perspective.

~~~
PaulJoslin
He may not be the 20th fastest driver. F1 is determined greatly by the car the
driver is given. He may be the best driver (which I think would hurt even
more).

Kubica and Nico Rosberg are good examples of this. Both used to race against
Lewis Hamilton in lower levels of motorsport and both used to beat him.
However neither Kubica or Nico have been given a truely championship winning
car yet to prove themselves.

~~~
sgt
Yes, F1 is 80% car, and 20% driver.

That is why I follow Moto GP. I would dare to say that it's down to 80% rider,
and 20% machine. I find it lots more exciting. To get you started:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfPM77TsGaA>

------
br41n
That's EXACTLY how i feel, except i'm almost 29, live in an "undeveloped"
country in eastern Europe with barely any opportunities and even though i'm
the lone sysadmin of over 20 servers in one of the largest media groups around
i feel like i suck badly compared to my peers. So you're not alone :|

------
jakevoytko
I'm late to this party, so I'll give you two quick pointers: "You and Your
Research" by Richard Hamming [0], and "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" [1]

Read both in their entirety.

You will gain a new perspective on those who make great achievements. They
experience the same self-doubt you do! Feynman notes in dismay that other
researchers at Los Alamos effortlessly solved problems mentally after he'd
spend days working out the solution. He also mentions when he starts in
academia, he was overwhelmed by an academic paper being discussed at a
conference because he didn't understand it. Richard Hamming notes a few extra
pressures, specifically the pressure to solve great problems instead of small
problems, and how this pressure ruins your work

Both books have similar lessons. Feynman says it implicitly, and Hamming says
it explicitly: Keep modern, work with others, understand the twists and turns
of your field, think about the future, and solve the small problems. You can't
force yourself to do great things, but you can stack the deck in your favor.

[0] <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-
Char...](http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-
Character/dp/0393316041)

~~~
mechanical_fish
I'm even later to the party so I'll just cite Ira Glass:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE>

 _All of us who do creative work... we get into it because we have good taste.
And it's like there's a gap... for the first couple years that you're making
stuff, what you're making isn't so good. But your taste is still killer...
it's good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a
disappointment to you...

A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people, at that point,
they quit. And the thing I would say to you with all my heart is that most
everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase
of_ years _[like this].... the most important thing you can do is to do a lot
of work. It's only by going through a volume of work that you are going to
catch up and close that gap._

Et cetera.

Somewhat to my chagrin, this video never gets old.

~~~
noonespecial
I'm actually really afraid of closing the gap. What if I get to the point that
I'm really pleased with what I've made. That's the end. I can't grow past that
point and likely, what I make still sucks on the grand scale.

------
aharrison
I actually had this problem when I was reading through Steve Yegge's blogs.
Here was this guy who had done so much, had so many great insights, and was
routinely pushing himself to do better. It was very inspiring, but also kind
of scary: how can I ever be that awesome?

It took me about a year to realize that his blogs are collectively almost a
decade of work by him, his collective wisdom and insight, which wasn't even
started until he had been out of college for at least 5 years. I was getting a
compressed version of his long-term work.

Like robryan says in another comment: the collective knowledge of HN is vast
and deep indeed, but most of these people have been hacking for years or
decades. Just keep at it, and try to realize that creating useful things is
not a zero-sum game.

------
revorad
I used to think like that, especially when I hung out on LessWrong
(<http://lesswrong.com>). Then I decided my aim in life is not to be the best
at everything as an individual. My aim in life is to do great and useful
things, on my own or with help from others.

Once I started seeing things in that way, it became really exciting to find so
many people, much more intelligent and talented than me. I can learn from
them, hire them, partner with them, work for them or even compete with them. I
can leverage (for lack of a better word) their awesomeness in some way or the
other for a goal higher than just personal achievements.

~~~
c00kie
Look at the last post on lesswrong.com, they seem to agree :)

------
ibagrak
If that's any consolation, you are not alone. I've been spending a lot of time
lately thinking about strategies for advancing past mediocrity. Here are some
general principles that I apply regardless of your background and past
accomplishments:

1) Learn by doing and trying, not by thinking. Aimless reflection and
introspection are bottomless pits that can suck up enormous amount of time
that could be put to far more productive uses. If you have a choice between
reading a book on a programming language and going through a tutorial that
forces you to try examples, go through the tutorial. Immediate, tactile
learning is better than abstract success stories which paper over important
ingredients for success.

2) Social networking is key. Grow by connecting yourself to communities of
peers, mentors, gurus, etc that you can actually rely on and that you can
benefit from. If HN is making you depressed, stop reading it. Instead
establish meaningful professional and personal connections with people that
are supportive. The value of your circle is often overlooked. I am a firm
believer that the quality of the people you know is the great predictor of
your overall happiness and achievement.

3) Focus on the things you need to know. The number of programming languages
you know doesn't matter. It is a meaningless metric. What matters is how
comfortable you are with the tools that help you get _your_ job done. This is
related to point 1). Having mastery and proficiency of something that you use
daily is far more important than having the breadth of knowledge and mastery
of exotic languages.

4) Stack your skills. Time is short so the best way to advance is to leverage
maximum of what you _already_ know. In other words, don't jump around and
shift gears all the time. Think of a long term goal(s) and try to segment the
path toward that goal such that you can (a) complete each segment without
getting distracted, (b) get feedback after each segment (c) learn something in
each segment that you can use in the next. It doesn't have to be one project.
In fact it's better if a sequence of projects, so you can adjust your course
along the way.

5) Don't stop. Giving up is an attractive option. Our society has many
different ways to cushion your fall, which can make quitting tempting and
virtually painless. If you want to achieve something, idleness is definitely
_not ok_.

Update: edited for style and grammar.

------
robryan
I get this to but I think sometimes we are getting overwhelmed by the
collective knowledge of hacker news rather than individuals. Granted there are
a lot of exceptionally talented people posting here but you will probably find
that the really great technical comments are coming from people who spend a
lot of time on what specific topic they are commenting on and would have areas
your great at but they have little knowledge or experience.

Also there are people that have been in the area a lot longer, so me being 21
wasn't around programming during the late 90's tech bubble or before. They
have had a lot more time to try a lot of different things.

It's good though to have the median above your own level, allowing you to
learn but faster then if you were one of the smartest people here.

------
JunkDNA
My work evenly splits between biomedicine and software development. I have
spent lots of time around really smart scientists who were trying to do things
like develop cures for cancer or new antibiotics. One of the things I learned
early on in science is to get used to feeling like the dumbest guy in the
room. There is a whole world of information out there and no one person knows
it all. You just can't.

That said, what I learned over time was that the best way to make yourself
smarter was to hang around people smarter and/or more experienced than you
are. The hallmark of truly intelligent people is their ability to recognize
they don't know everything. If you do this and you make an effort to learn and
build your skills, some day you wake up and realize you are an "expert" in
some area you have worked in for 10 years.

I worked with a very talented programmer a lot early in my career. One time I
was feeling down about ever being able to code like him. He looked at me and
said, "You know, I wasn't born knowing this stuff." I hear his voice every
time I get discouraged.

~~~
decadentcactus
I like to go through some old stuff from when I first started, most of my 3
line Hello World stuff, or returning form contents. Then even though I'm not
working at Google, I've come a long way.

------
lkozma
The gapingvoid comic line comes to mind: Never compare your inside to someone
else's outside.

~~~
gruseom
I did a text search on this page to see if anyone had already posted this.
Such an important truth, so well put.

------
thibaut_barrere
Here's the fix: don't compare yourself to others - compare your today's self
to your tomorrow's self (ie: grow your own abilites instead).

I really suggest reading "Nonviolent Communication"
([http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-
Mars...](http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Marshall-
Rosenberg/dp/1892005034)), which gives a lot of insight on these topics.

------
sidyadav
The way I look at it, I'm just glad that there people somewhat like me who are
doing, working on, and talking about smart things, and some of them who are
succeeding. You have to realize, the kind of people that hangout on this site
are fairly similar: they have entrepreneurial aspirations (and drive -- or
they would be reading more fun/non-practical news sites like Reddit and Digg),
most of them can design or code or both, and most of them are actually working
on something.

60k unique visitors does sound like a lot, but it's not a drop in the hat of
the amount of people that read Reddit or Digg or TechCrunch. So in a way, I
actually feel good about this being a site that is smaller and more focused
than those other ones, which really are the true _depressants_ , so to say.
Nobody on HN is out here to flame anyone, and most of them are thoughtful,
intelligent people -- the kind I want to be with.

What I'm trying to say is, if you find HN frightening, the world is beyond
anything you can imagine. There are people who are smarter than you, work
harder than you, in better/more happening places than you, and naturally more
rewarded than you. So then, being on HN gives me some comfort in knowing that
there are people who are sort of like me, and who are also navigating the same
world I am. Instead of comparing myself to these people, I'm just glad that
they exist.

~~~
sgt
Hear hear.

------
vimalg2
Like somebody wise once said, you should always surround yourself with people
smarter than yourself in order to grow.

If you can't do it in the real world because of your geography or the quality
of your physical peers, Hacker news is the best place to hang around,
particularly if you're a comput(er/ing) enthusiast.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
I know squat about most things, but I know a lot about a few things. When I'm
here I can comment on the things I know something about, and express confusion
and willingness to learn about the others.

You're 25 - you can't know everything.

You can do some stuff - get on and do it.

You come here and find people who know more than you do - learn from them.

Don't be over-whelmed - everyone here has their weaknesses, it's just that you
usually don't get to see them.

------
phaedrus
I don't get that feeling from HN, but I get the exact feeling you describe
when (trying to) read MathOverflow.com. For some reason the level of math
being discussed there has quickly risen to such a rarefied atmosphere that I
although go there out of interest and a desire to learn, I come away feeling I
can't keep up.

~~~
mian2zi3
MathOverflow's explicit purpose is to discuss research-level mathematics.
First sentence of the FAQ: "MathOverflow's primary goal is for users to ask
and answer research level math questions, the sorts of questions you come
across when you're writing or reading articles or graduate level books." The
discussion is really geared towards people doing research, or trying to. I'm a
math grad student, and I find much of it hard to follow. It isn't really the
place to go to learn math.

~~~
phaedrus
There is a need then for a stackoverflow-based site for practical or less
research-level math, for questions like, "How do I do this Laplace transform?"
or "How do I do this difficult integral?"

~~~
mian2zi3
Agreed, if there isn't one already. artofproblemsolving.com might fit the
bill, for example.

~~~
mian2zi3
<http://math.stackexchange.com/> is now in beta. From the FAQ: "Mathematics -
Stack Exchange is for people studying math at any level & professionals in
related fields."

------
Twisol
I just discovered Hacker News a few days ago, and I visit several times a day.
I've learned _so much_ over just these few days. It's _definitely_
overwhelming, and you do get that feel of insignificancy after a little while.
But I've come up with one rock I can lean on:

 _Don't compare yourself to the masses._ Seeing so much awesomeness can be
overwhelming, but you're just one person, after all.

I'm having some trouble with a project of my own, because it's such new ground
for me. Reading HN can be a little scary, because it does seem like these
people are doing something I'm not. Well, I can't say it's not true, but Rome
wasn't built in a day.

(Also, can I just say how weird it feels to give advice? I hardly feel like
I'm qualified! I figure you might get something out of it, though, and I've
always liked Wikipedia's "Be bold" sentiment.)

------
acangiano
You are comparing yourself to the entire HN community: a young man against
thousands of years of collective experience.

I suspect the reason why you do this is because you give your "talent" more
value than you should.

You wrote this:

> HN shows me all these people and ideas that are succeeding. It used to be
> inspirational, but now it's frightening.

> I've always been told I'm a smart kid, and that I'll be a millionaire some
> day, and all of that shit.

You can snap out of it, but you need to change your mindset about
intelligence, learning, and mastering a trade.

Please consider reading this essay of mine. I think it may be helpful:
[http://programmingzen.com/2010/07/04/the-pursuit-of-
excellen...](http://programmingzen.com/2010/07/04/the-pursuit-of-excellence-
in-programming/)

------
kaens
I used to feel like that. I felt constantly inferior. Eventually, I stopped
feeling inferior and started feeling like I was associating with peers. I
suspect that this had to do with a combination of me actually getting some
experience (so that I can now actually contribute to discussions about certain
technical things without sounding like a fool), and realizing that every
single uber-competent person was an utter noob at one point.

I used to stress over never being able to contribute to OSS projects because I
felt like I was drowning when I tried to, and a bunch of other stuff.

Give it time, keep hacking, and you'll be contributing amongst a field of your
peers before you realize it :)

------
peteforde
When I was a kid, I would try to watch television and my dad - who is great,
but he can be a passive aggressive prick when he wants to be — would say
something like "go ahead and watch the 'boob tube' but just remember that
those people have already made their millions."

I would sigh and go back to the 486-33 and keep hacking away at whatever I was
building in Visual Basic. I resented it at the time, but I bought my first
drums with money I made coding when I was 11 and I was making good money as a
freelancer by 16.

My advice to you, should you choose to listen to me, is that you can read
Hacker News all you want, but just remember that we've already made our
millions.

------
toefur
Work ethic leads to better performance than IQ in college students:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=789312>

Example of what can happen when the workload exceeds one's raw intelligence
and exposes the limitations of work ethic: <http://lwn.net/Articles/393694/>

And another HN post provides evidence that working harder will contribute to
your happiness: [http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/07/were-
happier...](http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2010/07/were-happier-when-
busy-but-our-instinct.html)

The simple fact is you are plugging yourself into where some very bright
people are communing (namely, HN) and that shows that you recognize value. You
seem to also be able to assess yourself. That is good. At least you know where
you are starting from. Focus on the positive. What you set your mind on tends
to be what you get more of in your life. Don't worry about how smart everyone
else is. Results are the only things that matter at the end of the day. So set
your mind on what you want (a goal) and work harder than you did the previous
day/week/month/year to get there. Constantly be learning (by coming here, you
will.) Learn how to learn better, faster, easier. Learn how to work faster,
cheaper, more productively. "Hack" your mind/heart and apply your life to the
expression of your mind/heart and you will see more results. (Notice the
absence of moral guidance there. I don't want to start a flame war only
indicate a system and a pattern.)

Enough self-help guidance. I wish you well.

------
nmftt
No, not really. I actually feel underwhelmed quite frequently e.g. the reddit
"fundraising" story two weeks ago. Don't get me wrong there are some advanced
topics being discussed sometimes. But most of the time it's either opinion or
layman's level non-technology topics.

But I also don't have a strictly CS background. I generally try not to express
myself negatively though, but instead value the good parts and recognize that
YC/HN is what it is.

------
chipsy
I've only felt as overwhelmed by HN as any other point in life where I'm
impressed at others. I recall being a kid and just starting to read, and
reading a book of jokes, and wondering how in the world someone could possibly
be clever enough to make all of those great jokes. Every other situation has
basically been a repeat of that. So while I often get the feeling of "that
idea is so simple, why didn't I think of it" or "I could have done something
like that," more and more I recognize that it's just a matter of right
place/right time to get the idea, to be motivated to take it seriously, and to
execute on it.

Learning is easier than product creation, IMHO. A product involves an ongoing
dialogue with a customer of some kind(even if it's free), while a skill is
just something you have and can demonstrate every so often, so you can go at
your own pace and not worry so much about "the guy at the other end."

The only thing bad about learning is when you hit a peak so high that you run
out of other people at or above your level to talk with. It's an incredibly
lonely feeling.

------
dreaming
The biggest problem I have is opening thousands of tabs, finding great
articles, bookmarking them for later and then not reading them.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
I had this problem. I solved it by upping the threshold at which an article
hits my "To Read" list.

------
PaulJoslin
In reference to point 2 and 'I've always been told I'm a smart kid and that
I'll be a millionaire one day'

It's worth reading this recent thread and the comments.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/crywg/dear_reddit...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/crywg/dear_reddit_did_you_believe_that_one_day_youd_all/)

The post is entitled 'Dear reddit, did you believe that one day you'd all be
millionaires, rockstars and moviestars?' - taken from the quote in Fight Club.
It raises some interesting points about how we are brought up to believe the
dream is achievable and often it takes a lot more hard work than we originally
perceive.

I personally wouldn't compare myself to anyone else. I've worked with some of
the smartest guys I know from a technical point of view, but they have lacked
in other areas such as ideas and execution.

(Often the best technical people neglect important things like marketing,
design and user experience - expecting the 'amazing product' to equal
success).

------
pathik
All the time, my friend, all the time. But it's much better to compare
yourselves to these geniuses at HN and be threatened/inspired to do better
than compare yourself to a bunch of average people and feel good about it.

HN and PG's essays are the best things that a student / aspiring entrepreneur
could experience. I learn new stuff everyday. HN rocks.

------
macromicro
The one thing I've learned doing this PhD is that progress IS other people. If
you're the only one doing research on a topic, you'll never get anywhere.
Similarly, if you launch an awesome website and nobody comes, you're in the
same problem.

The wonderful thing about the hacker community and especially ycombinator is
the openness and mutual support we offer each other. We create, and we create
more with other people. And rather than fighting over what's there we just
make more.

So your best bet is to identify your place and roll in this community.
Understanding other facets of the R&D economy can only help you, but use this
knowledge to figure out how you can contribute the most. The other people here
are not your competitors, they are your friends, employers, employees, and
colleagues. They raise the bar on you but give you a way to get there--
they're the most important people in the world.

~~~
elblanco
"If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." -
Newton

------
rwhitman
If you really want to feel like shit imagine this: you're a guy who went to a
chain art school and spent most of his career updating mom & pop websites and
tweaking Wordpress, and you're sitting in a board room in San Francisco full
of execs, engineers & multimillionaire entreprenuers who went to Stanford or
NYU or Harvard and trying to BS your way into making them think you're capable
of working on their project. Imagine how you squirm when they ask you
questions about processing some algorithm or conversion metrics and you have
no freakin clue what they're talking about.

Welcome to my world. At least on HN you don't have to see the condescending
look on their faces when they think to themselves 'who let this idiot in
here?'. Its MUCH worse in the real world.

------
gawker
Hey there,

On the contrary, I feel rather inspired by the audience of Hacker News.
Reading stories about how people have done it, the mistakes they've learnt and
their advice has given me renewed confidence in myself to go out and do it.
Typically people who are successful are normally those we see on tv but
reading the success stories and just how brilliant people there are on here,
it's a true inspiration. HN is probably my most favourite place on the web
hands down. Thanks to all of you! It keeps me humbled - never ever think that
I am fantastic at something or even if I am, there are other people out there
that can do just as well and I should never ever brag or boast about it. HN
keeps me grounded and keeps me driving. I love it.

------
SteveMoody73
I have the same feelings of being overwhelmed myself sometimes and I also feel
envy for the people who are regularly working with the latest technologies.

At one time I was working for a company where we were constantly developing
new systems for clients ranging from websites to large scale corporate
applications. It seemed that we were learning new languages and systems every
month and working on all sorts of platforms. It was hard work, but it was also
a great deal of fun.

The last few years I’ve been spending about 90% of my time developing embedded
software and very rarely use any languages beyond C, C++ and Assembly.

I try to read up on the latest developments as much as I can but I do often
think that I’m falling further and further behind the older I get :)

------
malabar
I would have to say that yes, everyday I visit this site and feel like a big
pile of sh#t. My reasons are:

1) I am fascinated by the stuff programmers do. I do not program, have tried
to learn, but I am impatient. I will never code, so I feel like shit.

2) I see info on some real cool startups, and think I will never be involved
in one. I do not have any great ideas, do not know any smart, cool people and
can kiss that experience goodbye.

3) I am in IT, but it is at the Class A level, not the major leagues. I feel I
will be stuck in the helpdesk forever, and it scares me.

So I feel like sh#t every day, because I read HN everyday. But when I do not
read it, I forget about it and feel better. Well, maybe it is the porn sites I
visit that make me fell better.

------
mhartl
I suggest you pick a direction and keep pushing. There's a particular set of
projects I sometimes look at, and I find them overwhelming. I think, "This guy
is way ahead of me", or "This guy is way smarter than I am". But here's the
thing— _they are projects I did myself_ :

* This guy is way ahead of me: <http://railstutorial.org/book>

* This guy is way smarter than I am: <http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/1940/>

I only feel overwhelmed because, in a single moment, I'm looking at the
cumulative effect of _months_ or _years_ of effort.

 _Pick a direction, and just keep pushing._

------
sliverstorm
1) There will always be someone better or smarter or versed in more languages
than you. Probably a lot of them, in fact, and they will probably be a _lot_
better. You just have to learn to accept that.

2) You are young; not everyone here is as young as you are. Some of the people
you see as rivaling yourself could in fact be your elders, who are _naturally_
a step ahead of you, and whose place you will assume in the future

3) Big fish. Little pond. Happens to me all the damn time. Fortunately I
realized a while back anytime I find I'm the big fish, that means it's time
for me to get out of my little pond and find the _really_ big fish.

------
gojomo
I fear that what you're feeling is a dark side of the net's otherwise positive
aspects. (It's not just HN.)

The net lets us see all the great output from the most talented writers,
thinkers, doers of their fields -- including people who we could imagine to be
our peer group. But what we see is not an accurate sample -- it's dominated by
the most remarkable, outliers by both skill and luck. (That is, there's
massive survivorship bias; see Taleb's _Fooled by Randomness_.) Still, if we
choose to look, it's in our face every hour of every day, in our news feeds,
our Twitter streams, our Facebook statuses.

(Compare also: the quality of social networks whereby for almost everyone,
your friends will have more friends than you [1]; the Matthew Effect, whereby
small changes in initial endowment of power/fame/success can compound [2]; and
how viewing top athletes can actually decrease someone's coordination in
following challenges [3].)

In the plant and insect world, sometimes as one organism thrives, it sends off
chemical signals that suppress the growth of its siblings/peers/neighbors, in
an effect called _allelopathy_.

Information about others' great works and successes, transmitted by the net,
may sometimes serve as a sort of memetic negative allelopathy. The message is:
this territory is taken; you can't reach the sunshine here; try another
place/strategy (or even just wither so your distant relatives can thrive).
This can be be the subtext even if that's not the conscious intent of those
relaying the information. Indeed, the reports may be intended as motivational,
and sometimes be, while at other times being discouraging.

What to do? Not yet certain, but awareness that this mechanism is in play may
help. You can recognize that what you're reading is not representative, and
that comparing yourself against prominent outliers -- or even worse, _vague
composites of outliers who are each the best in one dimension_ \-- is
unrealistic and mentally unhealthy.

Actual progress for yourself may require detaching from the firehose a bit,
picking a narrower focus. (HN's eclectic topic matter can be inherently
defocusing.)

And remind yourself that despite various reptilian-hindbrain impulses, most
interesting creative activity today is far from zero-sum. The outliers can
win, and you can win too (even if you don't achieve outlier-sized success).
Their success can expand your options, and they may wind up being your
collaborators (formally or informally by simply participating in a mutual
superstructure) moreso than your 'competitors'.

[1] [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-
fundament...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-
fundamentalist/200911/why-your-friends-have-more-friends-you-do)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect>

[3] Can't find the reference at the moment, but the study I recall showed
people video of a top soccer player, and subsequently they performed worse on
tasks requiring physical coordination.

~~~
photon_off
Excellent post. Thanks.

------
blaix
Something I remember reading in the pragmatic programmer's "Practices of an
Agile Developer" is that it's better to surround yourself with people who are
smarter than you. That way you are always learning and always striving to
improve. The analogy they use is that you always want to be the "worst" player
in a band. Once you're the best, it's time to move on so you don't become
comfortable and stagnant. So my advice is to become comfortable with this
feeling that so many people are better at something than you (I feel the same
way!). That's a good thing! It should push you to keep learning and improving.

------
jgoewert
Everytime I start to feel like that, I remember a truthful joke:

Q. What do they call the guy who graduated last at medical school? A. Doctor.

Don't discount what you can achieve. It may be intellegence, inspiration,
persperation, or luck. At last weeks RubyMidwest, the last lecture of the
weekend was a guy who just started taking on new challenges and went from
working as a kitchen staff to being a independent contract developer. He did
it by pushing his own limit in small bits. If you are just doing the same
thing every day, you aren't building skill or learning. Find something that
makes you uncomfortable and do it.

------
chc
You make claims like "I am not even a tiny drop in the giant ocean of talent"
and "I will never be as good," but that's just pure mental melodrama. The
actual, real-world observation you've made is this: "There are people here who
have done things that I haven't."

That's all. It's just about doing things. In many of these cases, you've
_chosen_ not to do these things. So you only really know three languages? Has
somebody threatened to shoot you if you learn Ruby?

Most of your supposed "inferiority" is just the fact that _they've chosen to
do some work_ and you haven't.

------
noonespecial
Does the opposite for me. I deal with such an endless sea of doofuses every
day, it brightens my whole outlook to see that there is such a large number of
driven, talented people in the world.

------
MikeMacMan
You need to remember that people go through ups and downs in their lives. Some
years, months, weeks are more productive and successful than others. Some
people have all their success early and then struggle later in life. Others
are late bloomers.

My point is this: don't get discouraged by all the great stuff you see on HN,
thinking that you don't have your best years ahead of you. You can be as
articulate, and insightful, and successful as many of the people you admire
here.

------
zackham
Being able to recognize areas you're motivated to improve upon is an
incredibly valuable skill. Just in this post I see the following:

1) You have side projects and experiments that have interesting enough ideas
behind them that you think they may be worth pursuing beyond 80%. 2) You think
you should be familiar with more than Javascript, PHP, Java, and MySQL. 3) You
are not completely happy only being comfortable in a Windows XP environment
with whatever IDE you are using.

Each of these items has a clear next step. (1) Think about your projects, pick
your favorite one, look at the code and do something minor. (2) Poke around
and do some light research (if you haven't already) on other dev stacks, play
around until you find yourself genuinely interested in one. (3) Install Ubuntu
in a virtual machine (VirtualBox is free and works well) or dual boot. Google
vim and emacs and pick one to start playing with.

If you feel like you are falling behind you can use that as an opportunity to
figure out what you're unhappy with specifically and do simple things to take
a small step forward. You can't do everything all at once, and the people here
that are impressive to the point of it being intimidating got where they are
by diligently making incremental progress over some time.

------
all
What the OP is doing is similar to a fatal flaw that messes up many companies.
If everyone is your customer/market, then nobody is your customer/market. You
can't market to everyone, and you can't focus on everything at the same time.
You must say 'yes' to some and 'no' to others, working a niche in order to
have a successful business. Similarly, in programming and pretty much all of
life, you must say 'no' to most things and be selective about the domains for
which you say 'yes'. I have more degrees and certifications than any human
being should ever have, but I know what I can do and stay away from what is
just plain beyond me - kernel dev, embedded s/w, and the like. Those guys are
rocket scientists to me, and I respect them for it. But I would be deluding
myself and them if I tried to hang with them as one of their ilk. There are
different clans. You have to figure out what yours is/are and say 'no' to the
rest. And that 'no' should not be a completely exclusory 'no' but rather a
moving of that topic to the fringe of your focus. Like a dart board, you pick
what you're about and focus on that as the middle. The priority of everything
else should be relative to that.

------
elg0nz
There is this great article on Make Magazine called "Why Those Kids from
Podunk Are Keeping You Down" And it says something in the lines, "So they made
something cooler than yours, so what? It wasn't you anyways".

And I belive its true, most Successful guys are just "lucky" (paraphrasing
Sarah Lacy's book "Once you are Lucky, twice you are good") so there is no
point in comparing yourself to them, you should use them as inspiration and
not exacly as role models.

For example, I really liked this Dustin Moskowitz (Facebook co-founder) answer
when asked about the Social Network Movie:

"It is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things
that didn't matter [...] A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly
we just worked a lot and stressed out about things"

[http://www.quora.com/What-does-Dustin-Moskovitz-think-of-
the...](http://www.quora.com/What-does-Dustin-Moskovitz-think-of-the-Facebook-
movie)

So at my 27 years old, I may not be Mark Zuckerberg or even the more cooler
and loved Matt Mullenweg, but I know that reading about them and how they
think make me think different too; that somehow by entreprenurship there is a
way to change this world and though it's really hard, I know that now I can't
stop trying.

------
fragmede
1) You cared enough to mention WinXP and an IDE. Why bring this up, unless you
realize there are alternatives. If it really bothers you that much, delete
WinXP and your IDE, and jump into the deep end; install $BetterOS and learn
$BetterEditor. (And spend the requisite time setting up $BetterEditor to do
code-completion.)

Realize that it also doesn't really matter, as long as your code is good, you
can code on Win98 for all I care.

2) In my mind, smart is worth zero. Motivation is everything. (And I'm telling
myself that as much as I'm telling you.)

What are _your_ ideas? Better yet, what are your ideas that you could do
overnight? Do one a week! Realize that there's very much a survivor bias - you
don't pause to consider the ideas that you never heard of that went anywhere
because, well, you never heard of them.

It's frightening _and_ inspirational, but take it as motivation to stop
standing still!

3) Well done on a successful posting. You've written a navel-gazing AskHN post
that got you 200+ karma. (Read: the community has given you a good amount of
karma, a community-based metric of how much something belongs to said
community, and it was for your thoughts (as opposed to posting the latest
TechCrunch/Wired/Ars/etc post from the rss feed before someone else got to
it).)

So you're working on a startup, and, despite your convictions that it's the
right thing, the best thing to do, there's will always be an air of
uncertainty. An unproven business plan, a failed-before business model, a
different pricing structure, a questionably useful product; some question with
no right answer. A competitor in a similar market is great! It validates some
part of your startup. You should relish competition, from this crowd
specifically, because it means YOUR idea is a GOOD one that someone else who
isn't you has decided to pursue it in a serious fashion. (That said, leave
_my_ customers alone :p )

\--

Yes, I do get overwhelmed occasionally that others are doing better than I,
but that should be motivation to do better, do more. I frequently find myself
thinking "Psh, that app is so lame, I could do better in my sleep." To which
my retort is "Sure, but what did _you_ do last night? Sleep? ...yeah".

Do the idea that you have floating around, write down what your MVP is, cut
_that_ down to a proof of concept that you could finish the engineering
essence of in a day and do that. Stop feeling overwhelmed and get to work.
Feel guilty for not working as hard as you could on _everything_ , and work
harder. While you're working harder, define your own tiny metric of initial
success... If only one person visits, if only 1 persons reads this, if only.
Be happy with what you have, but work hard to do even better.

------
pclark
No. I think it's awesome. I think the more smart people in the room, _trying
to do stuff_ , the better.

You talk about talent and intelligence - both important. But I've learnt that
most people - 90% - never actually try. They talk like they want to succeed,
but deep down they don't. They won't quit their contractor job. They won't
even try. What kind of life is that?

------
LookingToBuy
I like you, feel overwhelmed with grief after Reading HN at times. Many times
I have had great idea's, but lack programming skills (sys admin with asterisk
knowledge) that I have not been able to execute them quick enough using oDesk
developers etc that they have gone in to other peoples portfolio with great
success, leaving me feeling pretty useless.

My problem is, I get basic php, I can work with mysql just about, but can't
design/CSS or get JavaScript!

I keep saying, it can't be that difficult, but just don't get it when I try!

Since I found HN, 6 months ago, I have spoke to some great people, been given
very good advise. I have even started a project with iPhone app using
outsourced developers but it's slow (try telling a Latvian how to orient a
photo depening on type). I long to be a great programmer, I would love to have
even LAMP skills (could do with your talent, get in touch if you want to work
together).

One thing I do know, I'll make it, why? Cos all the cool talented talented
programmers here reply.

------
razerbeans
This is similar to the very same issues that I struggle with from time to
time. I have found, however, that the best way to counter such feelings is to
change your mindset. While easier said than done, changing your mindset to a
more positive one will do wonders while allowing you to accept the fact that,
while you won't be the _very_ best, you are indeed capable of getting close.
It boils down to putting on metaphorical 'blinders'. Don't worry so much about
what others are doing, but worry about what you're doing. Get passionate about
what you do or a project that you are working on. If your projects or ideas
consume your mind there's no place for worry.

I've also found that talking to others about your ideas that may not totally
understand the tech world and explaining to them in terms they'll understand
will help in boosting morale. Often times, people will see with fresh eyes
what others (such as those of us here) would overlook otherwise.

------
wr1472
Didn't someone once say something about ten percent inspiration, and 90
percent perspiration...?

Intelligence alone doesn't make for greatness. Besides, no matter how clever*
you are there will always be someone cleverer than you out there - don't
compare yourself to others, no wonder you feel down about it!

The universe is an immense and varied place, we are but a speck within it.
Amongst us are many clever and great people, but I guarantee you, there are
far more problems out there that need solving, and things that need
discovering than all the clever people that ever lived on this earth will have
the ability or patience to solve. Just keep your eyes and ears peeled for when
it comes your way - you'll know when because you'll have just the right
combination of skills and traits to solve it - grab it by both hands, and give
it all you got!

* You can substitute "cleverer", for "faster", "stronger", "richer", whatever and it still applies.

------
m_myers
Someone asked a similar question on Stack Overflow a while back:
[http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/12259/should-i-be-
di...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/12259/should-i-be-discouraged-
by-stack-overflow)

This was the top answer, by Paul Tomblin:

"The secret to happiness as a developer is not to know everything, but to be
prepared to learn a lot about a particular niche. I don't know the answers to
90% of the questions here, but I do pretty well with the ones I do know. (And
I've been a developer for 25+ years)

"And then some day, you'll be like me, nearly 50 years old, and looking at all
these questions and think "am I too old to learn all this new stuff?" In my
case, I snap out of that funk by assigning myself a new side project involving
a new technology. Last time I felt this way, I learned Perl and built some web
sites using Fast::CGI. This time I'm doing an iPhone application."

------
amk
If you are damn good with javascript, you already have my respect. And I am
not just trying to make you feel better.

------
jamesjyu
_I don't know the slightest thing about any other language besides Javascript,
PHP, Java (from school), and MySQL._

It sounds like you need to get uncomfortable more often: explore new things
outside your realm and expertise. Human beings tend to get stuck in ruts and
do the same routines they are comfortable with.

We need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I suggest diving into a language or framework you've never used and just
stumble around for a while. I find that this is when I learn the most, and
many times, colliding my existing knowledge base with something totally
foreign sparks new and original ideas I may not have had before.

Also, don't compare yourself with everyone else (easier said than done). We
are all knowledge workers here. Everyone is on their own quest. It is not a
zero sum game with other hacker news members.

Always improve yourself with respect to yourself, not other people.

------
JangoSteve
I often see the same thing you do, but honestly it makes me feel better, not
worse. Let me explain.

I've had a lot of successes (and failures) in my life. Some I've earned with a
lot of hard work and failed attempts, and some just came from my "natural
talent and ability" (that's a load of BS by the way). Can you guess which
successes were far and away the most satisfying? Hint: it's the successes I
had to kill myself trying to get.

Moral of the story? Don't ever feel bad when you recognize a difficult path
lay in front of you. Don't feel bad when you see room for improvement in
yourself. You have direction and purpose. And when you get there, the reward
will be that much more satisfying for it.

You have a shot at success if you work hard for it. You have a shot at success
_and happiness_ if you work _really hard_ for it.

------
malkia
Yes, but I don't care.

Please come to the video game industry :) There is always need of someone that
knows MySQL, LAMP, etc.

~~~
jonny_noog
_Please come to the video game industry :) There is always need of someone
that knows MySQL, LAMP, etc._

That's actually news to me... interesting. So there's still a lot of demand
for web sites/apps created in support of games, or are these technologies
being used in less obvious and more embedded ways?

~~~
malkia
We use MySQL for example for logging a lot of stuff coming out of the game -
for example texture usage, error messages, where people were shooting mostly,
anything.

Also MySQL, SQLIte are being used for the caching on the server, and caching
locally of the converted data.

PHP has been used for getting few internal sites, but I can't tell much.

So these technologies are not used in the actual games (at least ours), but
are used in the internal tools to make them.

~~~
photon_off
Very interesting. Anything like this that you know is needed in NY?

~~~
malkia
I don't know, I'm working at Treyarch, which is in Los Angeles, but our
company (Activision) has studio in New Jersey (or New York).

But I think any big enough game developer studio would be happy to employ
someone with such knowledge. From my narrow (have been for 10 years in the
same studio) view - we often need people that do know MySQL, SQL in general,
and other things that are not generally needed directly in game development -
drivers, monitors (file, network, etc.), web servers, etc.

Just imagine if every PRINT() in your game actually dumps all that info in
some server, and does not slow down you. You can do a lot of with that info -
it can log what level you are playing, when, who is playing, which build,
various settings, what you've killed, what textures were used, etc. Later
there might be tool pulling that data and analyzing it.

------
Mz
I've spent a lot of time on parenting lists for people with very smart kids.
Since intelligence is at least partly genetic, the members of those lists tend
to be pretty smart. For most of them, those lists were the first time they
really encountered substantial numbers of people who disagreed with them for
good reasons rather than out of "stupidity" (for lack of a more PC word).
Especially in the early days, it lent itself to lots of fighting and identity
crises. Sounds to me like that is similar to what you are going through.

I personally like feeling like a drop in the ocean of HN. I've had lots of
negative experiences with being a "big fish in a little pond". For me, being
"nobody" here is wonderful.

------
betterlabs
I agree. This is true outside of HN as well IF you look at the aggregate
smartness/knowledge of experts and compare that aggregate to your
smartness/knowledge. Its incorrect to do such a comparison. If you look at the
experts whose smartness you subconsciously aggregate, they are each not as
smart in every one of the areas that others are smarter at. Sean Ellis is
awesome as growing a startup who has achieved product/market fit, but not at
achieving product/market fit (in his own words). Sean could say/feel the same.
But instead he continues to be better at what he does. That, I believe, is the
way to go. Master the areas that you are good at/can get good at, and learn
the rest from others.

------
elblanco
We're all just drops in an ocean of talented people. Work hard, work
constantly, learn always, learn from everything, practice, practice, practice,
get a hobby that's not development work, exercise regularly, read classic
literature, learn some philosophy, business, math, art....basically follow the
model of the Renaissance man, but molded for today's world, don't be afraid of
failure (learn always), hate failure, start at the bottom and work your way up
so you can learn everything about how the world works, be an opportunist,
don't be afraid to step a bit outside of your comfort zone.

Hey, you're just 25, try and relax a little.

------
pbjorklund
I just feel more inspired. Imagine all the failed startups that this site
collectively represents. There are so many people here who went for their
dream, failed, and got back to it which eventually led to the success-stories
that we get to enjoy.

There is no single person that can be an expert in every area. But widening
your views just beyond one simple tool/technology is always beneficial, and
thats what I primarily read this site for. I read this site for the "aha"
moments. Also consider the amount of people that don't care enough to even
think about the subject you talk about. Just by wanting more your getting
ahead of them.

------
jblount
This is something I struggle with as well, but I think it's your response that
matters more than the feelings of inadequacy you might have when comparing
yourself to the very best parts of any community.

Does your perceived lack of talent drive you to learn and become better? Are
you actively looking for opportunities and inspiration to drive you forward?
Or are you simply idling on a web page re-living other people's
accomplishments?

It's a thin, dangerous line. Some people idle, some people drive forward. I
wouldn't suggest that either is the 'right' thing to do (I think it's morally
ambiguous) but my desire is to drive.

------
cabalamat
> _I have my own ideas that I love dearly and work on, the first of which will
> be released for you all to play around with and break at the end of the
> week, but I never leave HN without feeling that no matter what I do, it will
> never be as good as what I've just read about._

There are 7 billion people in the world. For nearly all these people, for
every skill they have, there is someone else better than them at it. I suggest
you not worry about it. You probably aren't the best in the world at anything;
you probably nevertheless are capable of making important contributions to
things.

------
chegra
I try to run my own race. I generally see HN as a place to assess what moves I
can make giving my ability and background. I talk about it in my Queen Theory
blog post: <http://chegra.posterous.com/the-queen-theory>

For me it's a pleasure to see so many people doing awesome things, cause it
implies I can too.

To put some numbers behind it, having an IQ greater than 120 does nothing to
improve someones chances of winning a Nobel prize. I think it's the same thing
here, it's a matter of just choosing something to work on.

------
Restart-Button
1) It takes time to get "damn good" at programming languages. Take it one step
at a time and do your best to stay enthusiastic about your work. Always have
that vision

2) Do not fear the competition. Eliminate that fear by any means necessary, It
is only a hindrance to your progress. 2A) Also: Better diet = Less stress =
Less fear,= More Productivity = Happier you

3) Programming requires a certain personality and a lot of hard work but it
pays off if you don't burn out. For me, expressing my ideas comes easier and
easier the more blogging/posting/updating I do.

------
kymmx
For me, as a non-english-speaking reader, who wants to know trends in these
information-overwhelming and daily-innovating tech society, HN gives valuable
source of news, blogs, even sometimes kind of tech 101.

Sometimes I feel like I am an only alien in the middle of natives, but think
about your school days. You didn't know everything you should know, if you had
finished your grade.

I'm happy everday reading and learning any tiny bit of new things posted on
HN. I hope someday I can comment more and even post my own writing.

------
Tycho
Sometimes I feel all these people are so much more hardworking than me, which
is a sad thought, but also a healthy 'kick your own ass' type thought. As
regards people having talents and achievements that I may never be able to
match, that in itself does't bug me because a) as a consumer I'll probably
benefit from their innovations, and b) if you're anything like me you secretly
think that you _are_ pretty f*cking smart and if they can do it, just proves
you can, broadly speaking. ;)

------
Poiesis
Look, here's the thing--we're not all your competitors. The existence of other
bright people is more or less orthogonal to your success. Even then, they're
probably a net positive because you have other people to learn from.

Your success or failure is up to your own actions. Worrying about other people
is like learning a foreign language and worrying about all those native
speakers out there. They're occasionally disheartening in their easy mastery
but it's ultimately a completely pointless exercise.

------
CoachRufus87
i feel like shit for 15 or so seconds, and then an overwhelming sense of
motivation pours over me and makes me want to go out and make something that I
too can proudly share on HN

------
janj
I feel the exact same way. Somehow I've been able to get over it and it makes
what I'm doing much more fun. One thing that I've done that's really helped is
creating something that many people find value in and enjoy using. I know what
I've created could have been done much more elegantly by most of the people
here but I just keep building on what I've done fueled by the growing user
base and positive feedback. Awesome learning experience and confidence
booster.

------
mian2zi3
Yes, but for the opposite reason. I usually walk away wondering why I wasted
my time here when I could have been learning something or, even better,
creating something.

~~~
binarymax
There is rarely a time when I walk away from HN _without_ having learned
something, which is why I continue to visit.

~~~
mian2zi3
That's great, I'm genuinely happy for you.

This may very well be my own failing. I learn the most when either I sit down,
alone, and struggle with a book, programming task, math problem, etc. or when
I talk through something in person with someone else. Sometimes the links here
occasion such engagement, but I've rarely found the discussion to.

------
gaza3g
Wow, I've been feeling like this for the past month or so.

I'm glad(should i be?) that someone felt the same way. I love reading HN but
some days, I really dread typing HN's URL and visiting the site since I know
fully well that I haven't done anything significant recently.

Reading the awesome posts here kinda demotivates me as there is a lot of
pressure to run a startup, make it successful, and to get FU money.

Btw, I know fully well the things I need to do, I'm just ranting, thats all.

------
joubert
Other posters have replied with some valuable things to keep in mind.

I'll add that you need to remember there is probably a difference in age
between yourself and that of the person (experience and thus knowledge is
partly a function of age of course) who posted some mind-blowingly interesting
and esoteric bit of information (I'm regularly amazed by the broad range of
knowledge by the HNers)

------
muon
Yes indeed, and it acts as great barrier fore me, even to comment here, but I
am luck as those questions are asked again by other HN folks.

------
dill_day
I really like how on HN the content of the comments is emphasized -- no
colorful avatars or signatures or any of that stuff.

I wonder if that maybe helps add to...like subconsciously, all the comments
appear the same so you start feeling like HN is this big thing that 'knows
everything' without realizing how many different people are contributing their
knowledge of whatever area.

------
neovive
Just strive to the best you can be. No matter how good you are, there is
almost always someone, somewhere, that knows more or is more experienced at
something. If those people are within this community and willing to share
their knowledge through comments, it is a great opportunity to learn and get
better. I've learned so much since following HN.

------
mgrouchy
In life, people are going to be faster, smarter, more well rounded then you.
Thats one of the sureties in life, the best thing about that is that there is
always room to improve and get better if that is your desire. So you shouldn't
let it discourage you, you should just look at it as an opportunity for self
improvement.

------
matrixownsyou
I felt the same way until i read a post from a HN user about "being mediocre
and it's OK". Not being a rocket scientist doesn't mean i can't build great
stuff too, i'll just never do something like this :)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0qlIoSSkQ>

------
mmaunder
The only proof that we've gained the talents we need is that we have achieved
the goals we've set. We are all like you.

------
evlapix
I'm was in the same place as you and have recently evaded this feeling by
distracting myself with other projects. (I bet I'm the best boat restorer in
the discussion now! I kid.)

I'm curious though; how do you feel now that you've gotten the communities
feedback on the matter?

I'm also wondering if this is something that others are interested in knowing.

------
briancary
If you are great at javascript and php and want to get in on the ground-level
of <http://infusedindustries.com>, then send me an email. Email me brian (at)
infusedindustries (dot) com. We're currently looking for someone like you (or
who you say you are!)

------
da5e
Right now this is the bottom comment which it is recommended by others that
one should read first. Bill Gates is one of the richest men and he would feel
he had inferior talent reading the comments on HN. (Well, he might not feel it
but it might be an objective opinion.)

------
0bfusct3
People that have all this "talent" is nothing more than a drive for something
- the talent in x, y, z is a side effect. My drive is for a distributed, vm
based operating system and a language to go with it, subsequently I'm versed
in mathematics, computer science, etc.

------
mfalcon
I used to feel like you. Then I thought feeling like that was useless and
continued minding my own business Who cares if some people are better than
you?, there is no competition. Keep working in what you love enjoying the
moment, that is success.

------
rkalla
Everyone feels this way in every profession every where... doctors at medical
conferences, race car drivers at racing events, movie stars at red-carpet
events.

This is why team-work is so important, because individually none of us can
really hack it.

------
nazgulnarsil
don't make the mistake of conflating status with success. remember that status
is zero-sum (other programmers succeeding is you failing) while the economy is
positive sum (humans create wealth). There's room for all of us to win.

------
geekytenny
You are a great contributor, speaking out for so many. Stick around much
longer, you will find yourself stepping up towards your goals. Much hard work
and and faith in yourself are two very important things you need. Good luck!

------
st0p
Recently I saw a poster by a wierd but beautifull Dutch organisation called
Loesje, translated it said:

"It was a day like this one that Marco Polo set sail to China.

What are your plans for today?"

IMHO it's not about where you are today, it's about where you might be
tomorrow.

------
mkr-hn
Everyone has some failing, no matter how high they rise.

The nice thing about being humble enough to admit it is that you can seek out
people who are strong where you're weak and ask for help and advice in that
area.

------
Yaggo
Remember, it generally takes 10 years (of hard work) to master anything.

------
scorpion032
Not that you would want to, but if you fancy being even more humbled, try
reading the top questions from <http://mathoverflow.net/>

------
jaxn
Never judge your insides by other people's outsides.

------
da5e
You're right. This is a very humbling place, but also inspiring.

Never judge your insides based on anyone else's outsides.

------
einomies
All this awesomeness makes me only more motivated, want me to be part of it
more and more!

------
paolomaffei
wealth is not a zero-sum game.

if you want to balance this feeling why don't you watch some reality shows? I
do watch a couple of hours of them each 6 months, it really helps.

------
jim_dot
I feel the exact same way most of the time...

------
hellosamdwyer
All you can do is keep fighting.

------
ahoyhere
Psychological research studies have shown that if you tell a kid that he's
"smart," he's less likely to take risks because he's afraid of not succeeding
& losing the "smart" label.

Sounds like you're suffering the grown-up version of that. You're worried
about the "smart" label and not the, say, persistence, hard-worker, stick-to-
it label.

If you are interested in finishing something, I highly recommend read the
posts on <http://www.justfuckingship.com/> \- you'll probably find them right
up your alley.

Take heart, by the way. Finishing and shipping is a skill, like any other, you
have to do it a lot to get good at it, but it's totally learnable. As is
entrepreneurship.

Oh, and take all these people here as a challenge, not a reason. You aren't
competing with them. You're the only person who will ever be "you." Let their
accomplishments at being the best of who _they_ can be inspire _you_ to be the
best of who _you_ can be.

Sounds a little woo, but it works.

------
hotmind
You can assume two things of insightful comments from successful HN members:

1) they are older than you, or put more time in than you, thereby had more
time to learn success systems, gain experience and accomplish things.

2) they are acquiring wisdom and success in various aspects of their lives and
leveraging those wins in the business arena.

Start moving in different directions and get some easy wins wherever you can
find them. These wins may seen small to you but be an Everest for someone
else. Also, recalibrate what success and talent mean to you. Explore different
definitions of it. Your perception of yourself and the HN community may not be
the most accurate one.

Most important of all, seek out wisdom. A lot of what you think is relevant is
only relative and transitory.

I've personally explored the topic before and wrote Three Steps To Obtaining
(More) Wisdom: [http://zerotosuperhero.posterous.com/3-steps-to-obtaining-
mo...](http://zerotosuperhero.posterous.com/3-steps-to-obtaining-more-wisdom)

------
c00p3r
The same mantra - launch (yourself) early (fast) and evolve (practice!). ^_^
Just do it.

The goal is to develop a proper habits (of focusing and concentration) and
increase self-esteem through them. Practice makes you "perfect".

Most of those people just started early and spent more time practicing. ^_^

------
hackermom
I have to answer no on this one. Not out of lacking humbleness or having too
high thoughts of myself, but for the fact that I just don't compare myself to
other people, regardless of whether they are "better" or "worse" than me.

------
borism
No

~~~
nreece
I'm not sure why you got downvoted. It's a perfectly sane opinion.

------
Tichy
iFart made a lot of money, too, I think.

