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Comment by robaato | Hacker News Reader

Japanese have the concept of the stages of shu/ha/ri. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuhari

This applies to learning martial arts, but to many other disciplines, e.g. in software engineering:

https://www.accenture.com/us-en/blogs/software-engineering-b...

I am a long time practitioner of Aikido, and it certainly applies to that. A very common trap for many is to attempt ha/ri when they have not mastered shu.

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>To me, the idea of Shu Ha Ri provides thinking tools, a language and a frame of reference to approach learning a new skill. When you are first learning something, variety of ideas isn’t usually the most helpful place to start. Once you get the basics down, then move on to experimenting and looking to integrate new thoughts or ideas. Your experiments will lead you to new paths and eventually you’ll move beyond the specific practices and evolve your own way of doing things.

That is a good summary.

Bruce Lee's famous quote: “Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.”

What’s the old joke about asking more and more technical people how a light switch works and the child’s explanation at the beginning and the physicists at the end are identical but in between becomes horrendously complicated…

Chop wood, carry water.

“Coding is basically just ifs and for loops.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29442307 for the discussion

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