I'm not young enough to know everything

I'm 39, and I understand where the "unconscious incompetence" comes from. There's a constant stream of fads that claim to be something new. You look at each one and find it's something you knew already. Repeat this for decades and you become conditioned to expect that there's nothing significant coming, ever.

It helps to be paranoid. If you constantly expect that the next big thing really will change the game and make your accumulated knowledge obsolete, then you keep your guard up. I don't have any tips for cultivating paranoia.

It's strange - I have the same attitude to new ideas now at 42 (with a wife and young child) that I did in my early 20s. If anything, I'm more open now to transformative ideas then I was then. I've started a startup :) I think maybe the "advantage" I have now is a career in another field, so that the programming world is to me now as it would be to someone in their early 20s.

As far as the stamina argument, as a building architect, I have evolved a large ability for extreme focus and no sleep. Multiple all-nighters are not uncommon on project designs that inspire me, but in terms of sheer productivity, I think all-nighters are not a good plan unless you are riding a wave of energy and creativity, in which case to stop would be foolish.

On the LISP argument... I'm having alot of fun programming with it, and it's doing everything we could possibly want, so I don't see a need to change except for the herd instinct argument. And whats really nice, the further we evolve our application (now well over 26K lines), the easier it is to change the app and add features. :)

I liked this quote:

When you're 22 ... You're "consciously incompetent." ... [But at 42,] You're at incredible risk of thinking you know things when ... You don't know, but you don't know you don't know.

I've noticed 2 kinds of people on this forum. Those who want to learn and share and those who want to show everyone how much they know. I've also noticed there are "younger" and "older" members. I suspect that there is very little correlation between age and "know-it-allness". In fact, there is probably a "johari window" to be found here, the 4 types:

- Younger/Share & Learn: Go Getters

- Younger/Know-It-All: Naive & Insecure

- Older/Share & Learn: Experienced

- Older/Know-It-All: Out to Pasture

The problem with age is that you know enough to know that you know diddly. The young, on the other hand, are ignorant of scope of their ignorance.

I'm not old enough to understand everything