Should you choose to be a programmer when you realize you can’t become one of the top 1%?

What are the top 100 people on GitHub China? Liu Weipeng’s name also appeared in the above ah, but a few days ago, and peng chatting casually on wechat, he said his theory of programming technology is just ordinary, but work seriously, love thinking.

In my eyes, Weipeng is unique.

Wei Peng wrote a blog: What is your irreplaceable and core competitiveness

Open any economics textbook, or just open it
Wikipedia’s Economics entryWe all see the iron law that scarcity is more valuable. Talent as a kind of resources, is the same truth. Scarcity, in other words, can be called irreplaceability. The scarcer a resource is, the more irreplaceable it becomes. Coupled with the
If the resource is something that has real use value (not Dutch)Tulip foam), the higher its price will be.

The subject of the question, perhaps is not peng in this blog put forward the question –

How do you structure your personal knowledge so that your skill set is as irreplaceable as possible?

Not peng quoted meng Yan in the article:

So what are the core competencies? I look at a lot of successful and unsuccessful tech people in my community, and I come up with an idea, and that is
The core competence of an individual is his unique individual knowledge and experience
combination. There are millions of smart people in this industry. What’s the real difference? It’s not what skill you learned, how deep you learned it, or what IQ you have. It’s that you bring a unique combination of personality, background, knowledge, and experience that no one else has. If this combination, 1, is unique; 2) valuable in practice and 3) sustainable, then you have core competence. So when you’re designing your own path,
Should maximize to strengthen and play their own unique combination, rather than seeking individual transcendence. The way to construct your own unique combination is mainly through practice, and secondly through conscious construction.

In view of Meng Yan’s point of view, peng did a summary and analysis, he thinks –

I believe that the following combination of knowledge and skills is quite irreplaceable:



1. Professional skillsBecome an expert in a specific field. The more specialized your skills are, the more irreplaceable you will be in that field. There is no need to say more about this.



2. Cross-disciplinary skills: Problem solving, innovative Thinking, judgment and decision making, Critical Thinking, expression and communication, Open Mind, etc.



3. Learning abilityStrictly speaking, the ability to learn is also a cross-field skill, but it is so important and crosses any field that it stands alone. So far, the most effective way I know to cultivate learning ability is to keep learning and thinking about new knowledge.



4. Personality traits: Strictly speaking, this is a cross-field skill for the same reason. Some personality elements that I believe are important include: Focus, persistence, introspection (the ability to recognize your own problems is a prerequisite for self-improvement), curiosity, confidence, humility (confidence and humility are the same, the former is to believe that others can do, the latter is to not always believe that what is right is right. Keep an open mind, etc.

Have been chatting with peng, feel this blog is very important, but unfortunately did not expand to tell. Even the four points listed above are not enough abstract generalizations. I will try to talk about the peng in my eyes from these four points.


1.
Professional Skills



Microsoft yingku pinyin input method behind the technology and story— Weipeng Liu (Weipeng is the backbone of the product team)

In addition, the professional books wei Peng has translated have a good reputation. Does this also represent his professional skills to some extent? (1) to modify the code of art douban) 2) Exceptional Style c + + Chinese version (douban) 3) c + + programming analysis (douban) 4) Imperfect c + + Chinese version (douban) no earlier blog on CSDN: peng liu peng not | c + + of the Louvre

Many readers like the cover of dark Time very much, but the birth of this cover went through a lot of ups and downs, almost more than 10 covers were made, until I found a Dutch graphic design company in Shanghai and decided on the cover after careful communication. I was overwhelmed by the process. Because I saw wei Peng, who was not engaged in the publishing industry, but had a direct understanding of the essence of cover design, which embarrassed me as an editor. Fortunately, I could keep up with his footsteps.

Wei Peng in the email to me about his understanding of the cover —

Miss Zhou, I am very moved and happy to see your email!

Although I am not learning design, oneself to is certainly do this, but what kind of design for a book of his core idea, or have the ability of this evaluation, and not learn design often design instead more objective evaluation, I remember many years ago, the cover of the book design a lot of domestic is quite fancy, use all sorts of line, and color images, a presumptuous guest usurps the host’s role, This is not the point. There is a similarity between the design industry and any other industry, that is, the hammer at hand cannot help but not use it. It happened that the UI Intern Designer of our recent Demo project also showed this point. And it’s a complete distraction from the reader, drowning in a sea of colors and lines that we want to focus on on the UI. In recent years, perhaps because of the introduction of some design books, or other reasons, whether it is web design or graphic design, the level and concept of domestic seems to be in line with international standards. The minimalist design style of less is more has become popular. The cover design of a series of popular foreign popular science books I mentioned in the previous email is some examples of mature design in my mind. Only by not having redundant details that interfere with readers’ attention, can we really highlight what should be highlighted. In addition, most of these good cover design has a common, is the most can attract the position of the eyes have a symbolic objects, although this technique is not the recent emergence of, but it seems that is becoming more and more mature, I still remember that year a large number of computer books cover can have 101010 covered with background, at that time I feel is not very elegant. The cover design of Beauty of Programming is good, the metaphor of the cover object is clear and classic, and there are no additional distracting details. But the time as the friend selection on the cover of the object is bad, my reason is very simple, now that is symbolic metaphor, since it is on the cover, but just to let the reader can easily understand the meaning (but not too straightforward, let readers have a realization of pleasure), a hearty “oh,” is the only standard to evaluate, I remember I also participated in the “to” cover design for discussion, my point is though the conch metaphor can say out the 123, but it is not clear, I guess more than 90% of the readers even couldn’t think of a heavy metaphor (I think), don’t say 3 heavy (but designers tend to be biased by their knowledge, think that metaphor is obvious, This classic phenomenon, also known as the “curse of knowledge”, is related to a psychological experiment in which one person is asked to guess the song by tapping to the beat (for example, “Happy birthday”). In practice, however, the listener is almost always clueless. If not, the object is just like any pretty picture. So I think the cover — which the reader will only notice for a dozen seconds before buying — should contain no more than one metaphor, and the metaphor must not be far-fetched and must be obvious. I can’t help but mention the cover design of Blink, Freakonomics and Rework. They are just like the textbook of cover design, representing the excellent concept of modern design with simple and magnificent style and objects with clear core symbolic meaning.

It was inconvenient for Teacher T to say so long before he quit his job. After all, he also studied design. But now I think I should have said it earlier (I already had this idea in the design of the first draft), and it might save teacher Zhou publishing house a lot of energy in the discussion and reconstruction. I remember teacher Zhou mentioned the idea of being “friend of admonition”, AND I agree with him. Teacher T is a pseudonym. — Zhou Yun note)

Because Of his clear thinking about the cover, Wei Peng repeatedly denied the cover he was not satisfied with. However, he did not simply deny the cover, but patiently explained why he did not agree with the design again and again, which convinced us. When we decided to give up with the always lack the patience to understand not peng ideas of the designer’s cooperation, to find a Dutch graphic design company in Shanghai, the company’s designers according to peng not raised the cover of the material idea soon (hourglass) design prototype, the cover not peng is very happy, but not because he had reached the own thoughts began to careless, Instead, he continued to put forward his own optimization suggestions again and again. The following email is the reply the Dutch designer gave me when he gave the fifth draft of the cover design —

Dear Teacher Zhou,


I like the title either warm or cold, top left or bottom left. All very good. If you have to distinguish carefully, I feel the same as Teacher Zhou,
Cool color
+
The lower left of the title seems cooler and more rational.




In my opinion, the difference between the top left and bottom left of the title should be: the top left is the design that highlights the title, and the bottom left is the design that highlights the hourglass.

Due to the upper left corner is the key for the position of the first and most people line of sight, so the title is placed in the upper left corner cube is the meaning of the title is more important than the hourglass, and because the upper left corner in the line of sight of the weight is high, so although no matter how you put as big of place, but in the upper left of the patch on the subjective feeling occupied a larger space. On the lower left, it seems to leave more room for the hourglass on the cover, which is larger and wider, giving it a stronger impact.

I trust the designer’s judgment and intuition, and I’m happy with it 🙂

P.S. is busy with techfest and running around with everyone these days. Please forgive me for the delay in answering emails.

P.S. I also noticed a subtle difference in the design of the two editions. The cool-colored hourglass is wider to the left and right, reaching right and left of the cover. The width of the warm hourglass has shrunk. I don’t know if it’s my preconceived impression or something, but it feels like the first hourglass is more tense? (Because not only does it overflow up and down, but it fills up right and left.)

Wei Peng’s carefulness was highly praised by Mr. Z, the head of the Shanghai branch of the Dutch design company. He replied in the email —

Not peng is really good, can see the subtle difference between the two pictures, this is not easy to do.




Our designers all made mistakes when linking pictures (because we found a lot of pictures at the beginning), we have corrected it on Friday, and we will try the method in the lower left corner next Monday after we get the statement of the minimum size of the logo of the electronic club.





From Wei Peng, we can see the quality of the author of Teacher Zhou’s cooperation, gratified.

What I’m showing here is only a small portion of the emails that Were exchanged between Wei Peng and us about the cover of Dark Time. In fact, there were dozens of emails exchanged between us for the final cover of Dark Time. For the whole book, there was a lot more email communication, because there were all sorts of details that needed to be hammered out, text, pictures, whatever.

I noticed that in the question the subject said something like —

Running through the algorithm is very happy, but it is very painful to pick bugs, and it is more painful to pick bugs badly for several days.

In fact, the cover of dark Time that peng communicated with us above, quite a part of which is just picking bugs, and peng was highly praised by the design side because peng found their bugs.

Peng did not graduate from Ntu, into Microsoft Asia Research institute, in teacher Zou Xin’s team. A chat and zou teacher talked about not peng, never light xu zou teacher praise way: not peng ah, do what can do!

This reminds me of another blog by Wei Peng: Don’t quit the cycle too soon

Interest is everywhere, but focus and consistency are scarce.




After reading the story in the book, many people come to the conclusion that interest is the most important thing. However, I think what distinguishes them from others is not that they have more than average interests, but that they have more than average perseverance.

Curious actually people are born to new things, hard to find out who have no interest in anything or field produced, however, some people’s interest can only last a few days, when the first difficulty, when the first hurdles, and they went out, spark interest in other people, however, will become the flame, the flame will become a fire, has been stable burning for many years. What distinguishes them is not whether they have interest or not, but whether they have the fuel in their character to keep the fire burning.

A person has the ability to focus and persevere and become an expert in an area of little interest (especially since a large part of interest comes from “I’m good at this”); On the other hand, interest will soon be dashed by some cold water.

Wei Peng gives his advice in this blog in a down-to-earth way:

Professional success is the most reproducible

What it requires is that you focus unremittedly in a field. You only need to choose a direction that is not too unreliable, and then concentrate on it. Finally, you will be able to become a master or a top master. There are many successes in the world with an element of chance or luck or circumstance, but at least this has been replicated by countless people over and over again, otherwise there would be no schools and no education.

Coincidentally, Li Xiaolai teacher recently a widely circulated article is also talking about this point



Learning (honing skills) is always the most fundamental means of creating surprise

A lot of people don’t actually believe they can get better — essentially because at some point their skills stop improving completely, and
It’s kind of hard to lie to yourself“And have accepted that it is what it is… Such people cannot believe in their own good fortune, simply because they cannot believe that they will become better. Such people, in fact, no longer have a future, and therefore can not be confident about their future — they just do not realize that, they do not have the ability to think so clearly. With such a person, you are thankful that nothing bad has happened. There are no surprises.

In my opinion, it is because of not peng has this kind of “do anything to” drive carefully, so he can be doing things at hand earnestly, can bring out the best side to find their own unique advantages, once met, in his long practice (ongoing) concentration and perseverance, can firmly seize the opportunity. –
The dark timeIs a good example. At that time, there were many peers like Wei Peng who were famous for writing blogs, but few of them could really seize the opportunity to turn blogs into formal book products. and
The dark timeIn its five years on the market, it has been printed 16 times (and was recently reprinted) with 300+ douban reviews (3000+ Douban reviews).

Watts Humphrey, one of the founders of software engineering, summed up the software field as two things: an explosion of technological innovation; On the other hand, persistent engineering work, including software improvement, maintenance and testing, accounts for 90-95% of the total. – I’mZou xin teachersMicro-blog, again and again to see such perseverance –

If on their own things, all can’t stand again and again “to choose the pain of the bug”, perhaps can only be in the negative air, such as the desired career opportunities coming – because in the process of waiting, he did not have a good practice to do anything (whether you are interested in or little interest in) need to mind (the ability to focus and persistent), So the opportunity for you, it is likely to be a basket of water, fleeting.

And that kind of patience and persistence in finding bugs is important not just for programming, but for doing anything. In my opinion, this is a person’s core competence. People who have the patience to find bugs in what they do are reflective. End with these words from Don’t Quit the cycle too soon:

Reflection is the most important quality of thinking that allows one to improve oneself




For many people personality changes are hard to come by after adulthood, or even before. Personality is a self-fulfilling and reinforcing trap: If you are not easy to focus, you will find that life is full of distractions, your mind is difficult to stay on a half an hour, so your time become trivial, you can’t in one area have long-term accumulation and deep thinking, the reality may make you feel depressed, which makes you more I can’t concentrate on, This reality can make you anxious, and you turn to other stimuli to avoid it. The result is a vicious circle.

Reflection is the first step to change ourselves. We are often easy to find the problems and mistakes of others, but hard to find the problems in our own thinking, because we seldom take our own thinking as the target to think.

As a programmer, I believe that no one does not know how to modify their own program, and can modify their own program premise is, first of all, the program must have a way to point to itself.

Recommended: Beware: Those who lack great interest in in-depth understanding of things – a false shot – Zhihu column

What are some books or blogs that can improve the skills of programmers?

As a emperor code farmer, now the situation is very confused, do not know where the future is, how should I do?