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Comment by forbiddenvoid | Hacker News Reader

Not to be snarky, but there is a clear answer to the question posed at the top of the page: "Why is everyone in such a rush?"

No one likes being poor.

The issue isn't about how long it takes to get good, but how long it takes to extract economic value from the exercise. How good to I have to be in order to make more money doing this than I make right now?

If it takes 10 years to get that value (it does not), then it might not be worth the effort. But I don't think expertise is binary, and the whole 10 years/10,000 hours thing can make people feel like the effort isn't worth it.

There is value to be gained during the 10 (or 50) years you spend honing this craft. And 21 days can create value, if not necessarily expertise.

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I suppose there is some truth in that. But 8 year old me hardly knew the value of a dollar except how much sugar could be had in exchange. But that didn't stop me from spending every waking hour trying to get my Vic-20 to auto-generate dungeon mazes. From running to the shop on the 1st of every month to pick up the latest programming magazines, then running back home to copy the arcane characters one by one into that Vic-20 in the hopes that the mysterious incantation would run. I count myself lucky to have learned to program before "growing up". An especially before the internet.

Sorry if I never really got to the point. Just wanted to say that I was in a rush - but of a different sort back then.

> "Why is everyone in such a rush?"

Because of Google's hiring filters (which I suspect Norvig knew something about), which tested for "Are you fresh out of whatever undergrads were being told at Stanford?" rather than the skills and experience development that Norvig talks about here.

> No one likes being poor.

I tried that. Lived on ~$15k/year. It wasn't freeing, it was awful.

I’m very pro this 10 year timeline, but totally agree that most people are in a rush because they need the money.

Psychology, I had waayyy more time with and appreciation of the fundamentals after establishing myself in a well paying grad role. “Alright, so I’m definitely not going to be poor — in fact I’ll be comfortable — now let’s focus on slowburn mastery.

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