I do as well. Been a woodworker longer than I've been programming. The physical and visceral removing chunks of cellulose to make something pretty is a nice counterpoint to working entirely in the digital realm at a desk. Great change of headspace.
Hilariously I took a break from programming to pursue woodworking. Fell down the hand tool rabbit hole. Even tried to start a business. Now I'm back to programming lol
I used to have a blog when I first started down my dev learning path and I never approached my writing as "learn how" but as "this is what I'm learning" and I think that's an important distinction and can avoid the pitfall of teaching other people new in the dev learning path something wrong.
I usually use a combination of "this is what i learn"-articles/blogs and books to learn. People who blog about what they learn usually try interesting projects and it's nice to have several guidelines on what to learn and understand next.
@@IvanKravarscan I had a decent following back then. I was primarily focused on Java and at the time blogging was just taking off. And yes, I’m old. lol.
I used to be the, "I code for 14 hour a day." guy. At work I was a top performer. And yet, I was passed up on promotions and raises. I couldn't keep up with the 2x pace anymore and slowly started to crash when I would get repramanded for doing the same thing as others were completely fine with doing. I basically set the bar for management. So I quit and moved on. I now work at a reasonable pace, I don't do any overtime, and I don't answer my phone after or before my working hours. I set the expectation nice and early and it's been great. Now I don't code on the weekend, I go on hikes, camping, roadtrips, walks in the park, hanging out watching TV with my fiancé, or meditate. There's more to life than code and I'm thankful I realized that in my 20s.
I love seeing people passionate about what they do. But I don’t think it’s good to glorify grinding that hard for work related things. It should be for the craft. With that said, good on you for finding balance
Great teacher monitors the learner performance and adjusts the teaching methods to match the needs of the learner. Bad teachers think that they are performing pre-scripted play and could be replaced with a RUclips video.
It depends a lot on the teacher. The thing Prime was saying is bad - getting asked a question and not knowing the answer - is how teaching teaches the teacher. That converts an unknown unknown into a known unknown and provides an avenue for the teacher to learn new things as well. Buuuuutttt... that only works if the teacher is willing and able to say "I don't know" in a way that helps both themselves and the student. They need to be able to overcome any embarrassment they feel, be willing to follow up to find out the thing they didn't know, and remember to get back to the student with the answer (or better yet, work with the student to find the answer if the circumstances allow; eg: if asked during a 1-on-1 chat or small group vs in the middle of a prepared lecture). _And _ be able to do all that in a fashion that doesn't come across as just an idiot who doesn't understand any of the material and is just regurgitating things they found elsewhere (that appearance is not attached to the reality - they could understand nothing and still come across as competent, or they could know everything aside from the one question and still come across as an idiot - its more a social skills issue than a subject matter issue).
Eventually everyone that is a teacher will be asked a question they don't know the answer to. What prime is saying is ridiculous. No one expects a teacher to know everything. You should start teaching from day one. Lots of research suggests it's a good way to learn.
I’m older than Prime and a developer. Yet, I think Prime is a superior developer. I’ve over the years divided my time between code, art and music. Yet, recently I’ve been going 100% coding again. There’s a lot of coding I’ve gotten a little lazy about and have a desire to improve and surpass my current level.
IMO, what makes a great developer is always seeking to improve, and finding pleasure in learning. If you know how to do that, no matter how dumb you are, you'll outperform the others given enough years. It's a marathon, not a sprint! Also, being good at estimating how much (or how little) you'll need to manage complexity for your current project. And finally, being willing to challenge pre-established, widespread ideas, while still being able to accept them when your current context plays to their strengths.
I agree, but I leave the learning to when I'm working. In my free time, I don't want to sit and learn something that won't benefit my work. I've got other stuff to do!
@@evaldssontom The problem is that you're kinda limited if you only do that. What about for example learning a new language? or a different architecture than the one used at work? Maybe at your work you don't use a queue, but it's useful to know how they work and where would be a good fit. Things like that, IMHO I think that limiting your learning to work will stunt your growth. On the other side I also get your point, maybe you value more having other hobbies and enjoying life in other aspects.
I would say its more like driving a car, a great driver doesnt crash getting from point a to point b, if your program crashes even once, you are a bad programmer.
Travis is positive and encouraging. His message is essentially that people can learn on their own and make a new career out of it. Conversely, many of the "experienced" developers are condescending. Their message is repeatedly that newbies just don't have enough experience, need years more practice, don't have what it takes, etc. How much experience qualifies as 'experienced'? How many years experience does one need before they can teach others? To effectively teach, one must inspire, encourage, and applaud. On one side we have Travis doing that, and on the other we have more experienced, sanctimonious developers spitting venom.
Teavis is a grifter selling courses to lazy people who want a shortcut into engineering. Noting positive about that, just spreading code-monkeyinsm which already hurted this industry.
@@vitalyl1327 So no self-taughts work as engineers? Here I thought employers didn't care about pieces of paper, but Vitaly is telling us that's what one needs to be an engineer. The world is filled with people telling you what you can't do. If you listen to them and take their message to heart, they'll always be right.
@@apl1568 in many countries the very title "engineer" is legally defined. Sadly, not for the software engineers. Self-taughts are incompetent and their productivity is negative. The sooner this industry is regulated properly, the better, we must get rid of all the wrong people. Those who work ad "engineers" are impostors and will never become real worthy engineers.
For me, every idea sooner or later leads back to programming. The more paradigms you can wrap your head around, the more tools you have in your pocket the more problems you can solve. So whatever resonates with you or brings you joy. Steal ideas from economics, history, molecular biology math. It is all good and will help you with your programming.
“When I do the thing I do the thing” This is so me, when I say I'm playing games today, I play until I'm satisfied. When I say I do programming today, I do programming until my eyes close. This is the most efficient way for me to dive deep into whatever I'm doing.
Problem on YT now is that there are too many new devs, with max 4-5 years experience and trying to teach us things. But the content is full with mistakes, bad practices etc etc.
14:34 Passion in anything is infectious. I've been coding for more than decade, every time I spend time with people excited about their passion it makes me want to reflect that in my passion for code.
The target video is not about what makes a great developer. It’s really about work/life balance and the propensity, or lack thereof, for being a teacher. Prime: the elephant in the room is that you should do stand-up comedy. It’s your natural comedic ability that makes you interesting more than anything else. You know it; we know it.
@@derekl-m3x By definition, being funny means being a good comedian. That is the “Prime” element. The rest is things not strictly required, such as showmanship. If you can be funny on stage, you can be a comedian.
The question of "where are all the great developers -- why are they not on YT?" boils down to one thing -- time. It take a lot of time to be a great developer, and very few can be a great developer while still having time for making YT videos and doing everything else in life. Especially as for the first several years it's almost 100% that new YT channels won't really make any money.
Experiencing things outside of coding sometimes makes me want to go and code more. For instance, I really enjoy going on walks: "Maybe I'll build a step tracker app just for fun". Then that turns into "Maybe I'll buy an arduino and try to hack together a fitbit prototype." Or, "Maybe I use the geolocation data from my step tracker to recreate my walking path on a minecraft server in realtime" (I don't know why I even thought of that) You can have a life AND be enthusiastic about programming.
@@viewerguy10 I saw recently one guy coding step counter, where its also send remote mouse click to desktop pc on step while walking outside. Runescape things...
He's a streamer and he wants people to watch his ads because he has to make money of his own. The whole streamer concept is just the software version of a street performer
18:20 100% on burnout, got to do more of the things that pump you up. We have some really interesting projects at work and I dont feel time when working on them but then other times there is monotonous work stuff that just drains the soul. I find having personal projects that I'm keen on help me through the draining times.
I remember when i learned python list comprehensions. I started doing them _everywhere_ . I knew it was a problem when i made a comprehension from a comprehension.
Yes, it's like when you learn a new thing and fell so proud of yourself that you start puting it everywhere, just to come back one year later to read your code and feel cringe.
Lmao true, but hey, it's good to make those mistakes early, because that will lead you to more readable code in the future, since you already know how ugly it can get.
One of the best ways to learn is to teach. If you know something well enough to teach it then it means you've mastered it. Especially when it comes to coding. If you can teach coding with the right concepts behind something then you can certainly use the technology.
[x] Touch the grass! I think that this is balanced, to be a Software Engineer you can choose to do your Hobby or programming for fun in your free time!! The important is there people in the right place, good devs creating content, others creating languages, tools, frameworks, tutorials… and is growing pretty fast!!
Everyone is different. Burn out is real. I like Marty O Donell’s take on burn out. You’re not invincible to being tired or overworked. Sometimes people need to be sent home to separate from work. Even if they love working. Solving one more “problem” is not worth your sanity.
I program in my time off, I learn new programming skills in my time off. maybe once i get a VERY secure engineering position with good pay, I may relax a bit and pick up my hobbies again.
No, teaching well has nothing to do with you just getting started to learn, but to already have overcome the challenges and realize what your "student" is actually struggling with and then being able to come to their level and build from that. Which is only possible when you have a vast knowledgebase to draw from to be able to connect to their knowledge seemlessly. Edit: Teaching obviously can be a learning tool with a great opportunity to find knowledge gaps, but this is another use case and requires the partner not to be reliant on your teaching
I agree, that time spent is not particularly related to burnout. For newer people in code, I think they should be spending a LOT of time coding and learning. And you fight burnout not by taking breaks, but by just moving to things that are exciting, and maybe looping back, or not. But focusing on interesting things.
one thing i realized with overwatch when i only had 2h a week but trying to rank up, and music production when i only make 1 small track per year, is that yes you get rusty and have to spend a day or two getting good habits back, but you also lose /bad/ habits :) I played cleaner and more disciplined each time i came back to the game, and yeah only needed 1 full day to get back on track. For music productioni also seem to keep getting better at it even when not touching FL Studio 11.9 months per year, it's wild.
I feel like I can only ever enter sort of a flow state when I'm working on something that's really fun and engaging, like adding a feature to my game. When it's something like math assignments from university, I'm simply unable to force myself to full focus, I have to have some sort of distraction on my second monitor to get through it.
When I was just starting my uni, we the students would often help each other by teaching things we just learned when some people did get it and some others didn't, and it would almost always work way better than teachers teaching the same thing. I remember on our very first lessons when we were taught binary I was super confused, I asked questions, my questions were answered and I was still as confused, not knowing what to ask even to make it more clear to me. Then I asked my friend for help, and she just knew exactly how to explain it to me, and I was able to easily convert binary-decimal and the other way around after 15 minutes. It's much easier to understand the beginner's struggles when you're a beginner yourself, and it's much easier to know what they need help with and how exactly to explain it to them, while now I'm sure it would be much more difficult for me to help a student who's just beginning with programming, cause I don't know what's hard to understand about concepts I now think of as basic and obvious, we just wouldn't be on the same wave.
deloading in strength sports or rest week in endurance sports is not about taking time off, but about training at low intensity and low volume. You’re still going to the gym or going on a run, you just don’t push yourself
I play the Drums, and Starcraft 2, and workout. And still code after work and on the weekends and maintain many personal open-source projects while maintaining a lead embedded programmer role at work. It's totally possible. I don't have a family though so that's probably why
There's a definite point about being so comfortable with a concept that you become less able to teach it effectively because you've forgotten why it's difficult in the first place. As long as you understand the concept fully I'd argue you're a better teacher the closer you are to having learnt it.
Hello Mr. Prime, I love your content! Sometimes I don't have time to watch your videos on RUclips, so I was wondering if you could create podcasts or maybe convert your videos into audio. This could be a great way to expand your audience-every developer should know about you!
Im distressed now that im about to graduate. I have no experience but I realized I love learning for the sake of learning, as like its the destination and not just the journey
I don't like to complain about free infotainment on the internet but... I don't understand those videos that could be tweets. Especially when the tweet is "hey, did you guys know about living?". I can't imagine the process of making such a video. It's beyond me really. I always feel robbed of my time. I guess it makes me the jerk but it really puzzles me in an irritating way.
I kind of don't want to put myself out there. I don't want the hassle, if I were to stream I would have to spend time preparing and scripting everything to a high degree I want to produce. Secondly, I would feel my employer might have something to say about me sharing my nuggets of joy. (Coding since 1984)
1:51 I'm one of those, why am I not teaching ? simple , I'm only good at teaching myself, I'm a very, very specialized teacher that can only teach 1 person, and I'm very good at it, but I'm also bad when trying to teach other people. Its a scaling problem. from 0 to 1, from 1 to many.
When I was mentoring some 5 years into my career, kids straight out of college could ask some pretty interesting questions, one’s that I hadn’t thought about, so if I didn’t know my response always was: “ I don’t know, but I’ll find out”. And I did make it a point to find out and follow up and thank them for their question 🙋, because it made me think 🤔 also! Roman history?? Their mathematics ( Roman Numerals) does not include zero or infinity, I prefer Egyptian or Chinese which had far more advanced mathematics 🧮 which included zero 0️⃣ ergo bits and bytes!!! - Amy
I have a ton of hobbies, programming is one of them, but I have many. And I find that they go in cycles. So one week I will suddenly get really into drawing and then I’ll draw for the next two weeks and then I’ll get really into game development and the cycle continues. I find it really difficult to finish big projects because my attention span and my passion only go for so long. Now a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have ADHD and autism. So a lot of these are special interest that I hyper fixate on for two weeks. I can push it past two weeks and stay focused for about a month, but by the end of that month, I will be burnt out. It’s not a perfect solution, especially for getting things done but I found it causes the least amount of dissatisfaction because it allows me to do whatever I’m passionate about doing. The good news is that these hobbies always come around so even if I don’t finish a project on the first two weeks or the month I can always leave it and come back to it in a couple months when it comes back around.
I tried blogging and readers where 10 crawlers and maybe 1 human every other post divisible by 7. Making YT vid sounds like more work with less (more expensive) edits and about the same outcome.
I kinda get where he is coming from, honestly, when I started out I was so dumb it took months for me to click how to make a loop in Java. I kinda wanna say the grand developers make great courses for people who are already smart / they have already cracked how to program.
Travis begun making tutorials when he was a newbie and now likes to give advice how to become a great developer. He has 7 years of experience. I hope he learns some day that people are different and stops assuming things too much.
1.) There's a HUGE difference between teaching and sharing, and I wish people talked about and understood this nuance better. So for example, I just started learning C+ and Unity, and I'm going deeper with HTML and CSS to create custom code for clients. In no universe am I qualified to TEACH (impart any knowledge whatsoever) these concepts. I'm a mess. Seriously. But I can (and do) have a Substack where I document my process. I can share the concepts I'm learning, the principles behind them, how I'm applying them. In other words, I'm sharing my unique experience of the knowledge, not the knowledge itself. I've only gotten overwhelming support for my dev journey content because I'm not trying to pretend to be someone I'm not. I don't need to teach. I can document the journey as a beginner, and if another beginner finds it, cool. They can take the same skillshare class and we can swap notes. 2.) Omg I'm OBSESSED with listening to people's obsessions, so I brightened when you mentioned this. I've had some people say I'm too obsessed with Star Trek and that I don't need to find a Trek example for everything, but I do need to 😂 (I mean, come on, I speak in Klingon with people for fun. I think the ship of casual fan sailed at least two decades ago lol) In a world where we're told to practice moderation and fit in, I gravitate so much to people who have genuine JOY for their passions. It radiates out of them, and it's infectious.
There's a ton of gamedevs making tutorial content, if anything the internet is oversaturated on developer tutorials more than anything else because programming makes content creation significantly easier. If you're a good cook, to be a content creator you also need to know how to write programs, work with different platforms, edit videos and shit. If you are a dev you have some of those skills by default.
I add my UX designer feedback here. I understand about senior developers or people who are effective and found “unplug” or hobby as a way to recharge. But in my team (UX design) we have people who don’t know where a button to create component is. They don’t know basic skills of the main design app we use. I’m not even talking about creation of complex components.
The fill CS Lewis quote seems to be "“Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented.” An Experiment in Criticism" That's a great quote!
I for one am just not free in sharing everything. Sometimes we end up to a solution that works for us, but have to go about the rest of our day, just to have that little golden nugget shimmer in the darkness of past time.
Sometimes you just got to get away from the damn keyboard. MTBing and adventure bike riding is my getting away from it all. And yes, I am a Gen Xer. One day you will wake up and come to the realisation that computers can be really boring if you do it all the time.
Very useful to watch this because it gave a different perspective on things. But I think this is one place where he kind of missed the point. He is somebody who enjoys coding outside of work but he also got to do other things at a very high level, table tennis for example. I think the original video is about people who code outside of work because they feel like they have to, not because they enjoy it. But, again, very useful to see the perspective of somebody who does enjoy coding as both work and hobby. Also, I really like the take on how people get burned out, the idea about reward and not time I believe is spot on.
Another thing that interesting is that expert usually suck at teaching beginners stuff since they usually forget which part that beginners are struggling. Like there is no way that haskell enthusiast can teach recursion to python bro
"...and some people just aren't personal enthusiasts about programming..." And some of us USED to be, but got it beaten out of us by the corporate grind. And I'm going to change my id to "Meatbag".
Cutting Horses and amateur BBQ cook here. I am the guy who needs the away time to do peak work when I’m programming. I’d probably be most productive working for about two months straight followed by a couple months off
I have 3 suggestions for you today: walk works for him Do as much as you can everything you love. Know what you love to do. If you have kids PLEASE be aware these little fellas will be out of your life in 15 years and that's nothing. REALLY. Nothing. So get to KNOW that you love to be with the kids. Do what you love, life is short.
It's funny how he is like "I'm ADHD, programming is my special interest and since I don't have burnout, no one will ever have burnout". Part of discovering that you are neurodivergent is understanding our minds are not going to work the same way. Then, we should NOT make claims for others based on personal experiences (unless you can really see that in others, not only you).
Is he saying "no one will ever have burnout"? Or is he saying that, no matter what you do, if you do it in a way that's not enjoyable to you in the long run, you will be burnt out. All he is saying is basically "stop making excuses and actually think about how to approach this in a better way, rather than beating your head into a brick wall for years and wondering why your heard hurts afterwards".
@@lynwoodcallahan7286 well no. He's saying "you must proceed like this, or you'll burnout". See... I've been programming for 45 years. I haven't burnt out. I program in my spare time. So... he's wrong for me at least. I suspect others are the same. He's saying "this makes sense to me". That doesn't mean it applies to everyone.
@@lynwoodcallahan7286 pretty sure it's the first option. And he's admittedly not an experienced programmer. So why is he giving advice about how to be one? I'm not saying he's wrong... for some people. I *am* saying he's not right for everyone. Walk your dog if that helps. Program harder if that helps is my point. Why give advice about something you don't have experience with?
Reason why I would not watch the ad is that if I watch it and his sponsor is happy, what do they do? Push for space for a second ad, and a third ad, and another ad... remember how TV ad breaks were 5 minutes long? Well, check how long those blocks are today... at least over here in Europe
I just enjoy doing, not making videos or writing about doing. I'll talk 1-on-1 with folks about doing, but I'm not going to spend time polishing material for a wide audience.
I suffer from the opposite. I have 10 "main" hobbies (including programming itself) and... I don't know... 20+ additional interests. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't have the time to do them consistently even if I didn't have to work, but I just can't get myself to drop any of them completely for a period of more then a month because those "distractions" in aggregate are the only thing that makes my job (not work, which I actually very much enjoy) tolerable. Sometimes I get bummed out because if I could somehow mitigate the burnout without diversifying my activities so much it would certainly make me more "successful" but thankfully mourning that hypothetical success never lasts long.
@@sila_v_malenkih_shagah293 whatever spent the most time in cool-down at the moment. Everything just comes and goes almost beyond my control. %) Over the years I've just learned to roll with it - it's to late to change anyway...
@@sila_v_malenkih_shagah293 mostly whatever spent the most time in "cool-down"... everything just comes as it goes with almost no control on my part. Over the years I just learned to roll with it - too late to change anyway.
We are in the dickfunnels and Tony Robbins era: sell a sucky course on a subject you know nothing about because "you can do it too, believe in yourself".
Why would that be crazy? It is absolutely fine if both parties are aware of the scope of knowledge the teacher has. Lets say I don't know how a for loop works. I am ok with this kind of thing being explained by a junior dev. There are levels to learning. Sometimes you want to get your foot in the door, some times you want an opinion from more experienced people. What is not OK is if the teaching party pretends to know more than they do.
I think the issue that many beginners coders have is that they are not into coding this much. and I'm one of them and I always try to do just code and coding stuff and I just can't
Travis jumped the shark when he switched from JavaScript and started pontificating from his e-pulpit about how we all need to start writing everything in Rust .. because he read somewhere that its “safe”
I misread the title "What Make a Game Developer" but I agree that both of them doesn't AND shouldn't create content. It need a substance, an essence. 20:06 That's how families are created!
Many people good at doing things aren’t good teachers … the new style of podcasts and video casting are often better for those who can at least show what they do even if can’t explain it well
with respect to noob developers teaching, I'm pretty sure 3blue1brown said this, but you can still make educational videos as somebody new to whatever field you're teaching. you just have to make it very clear that the video isn't made from a position of authority, it's more as a summary of your explorations in a topic.
I don't touch grass in my spare time. I touch wood. Err, I mean, I build things out of wood with hand tools.
I'm pretty sure all developers "touch wood" every once in a while.
I do as well. Been a woodworker longer than I've been programming. The physical and visceral removing chunks of cellulose to make something pretty is a nice counterpoint to working entirely in the digital realm at a desk. Great change of headspace.
I touch wheat and other cereals as in I like to bake in my spare time
Hilariously I took a break from programming to pursue woodworking. Fell down the hand tool rabbit hole. Even tried to start a business.
Now I'm back to programming lol
@@soyitiel baking cake is truly enjoyable. I love eating cake!
I used to have a blog when I first started down my dev learning path and I never approached my writing as "learn how" but as "this is what I'm learning" and I think that's an important distinction and can avoid the pitfall of teaching other people new in the dev learning path something wrong.
I usually use a combination of "this is what i learn"-articles/blogs and books to learn. People who blog about what they learn usually try interesting projects and it's nice to have several guidelines on what to learn and understand next.
Did anyone read your blog?
@@IvanKravarscan I had a decent following back then. I was primarily focused on Java and at the time blogging was just taking off. And yes, I’m old. lol.
I like how Brilliant separates programming and Python
now thats brilliant
Based
is python not a programming language?
@@johndank2209I think this is sarcasm.
@@johndank2209 It's actually a kind of snake
I used to be the, "I code for 14 hour a day." guy. At work I was a top performer. And yet, I was passed up on promotions and raises. I couldn't keep up with the 2x pace anymore and slowly started to crash when I would get repramanded for doing the same thing as others were completely fine with doing. I basically set the bar for management. So I quit and moved on. I now work at a reasonable pace, I don't do any overtime, and I don't answer my phone after or before my working hours. I set the expectation nice and early and it's been great. Now I don't code on the weekend, I go on hikes, camping, roadtrips, walks in the park, hanging out watching TV with my fiancé, or meditate. There's more to life than code and I'm thankful I realized that in my 20s.
being average is nothing to be proud of
I love seeing people passionate about what they do. But I don’t think it’s good to glorify grinding that hard for work related things. It should be for the craft. With that said, good on you for finding balance
Well, that's the thing. I coded very hard before, then in return, I got nothing.
I understand your point, and you're not alone in this, my man
@@deestort people still got their family to take care of, stop mocking others for their life choice
Sounds like you had shitty managers at that role, honestly.
Teaching also teaches the teacher. This forces the person to adopt a learning approach which facilitates both his and his student's learning.
There's a time and place and it's not on the internet doing videos when you've just started to learn about programming
Great teacher monitors the learner performance and adjusts the teaching methods to match the needs of the learner. Bad teachers think that they are performing pre-scripted play and could be replaced with a RUclips video.
@@MikkoRantalainen And you can only do this if you have mastery of the subject and experience teaching
It depends a lot on the teacher. The thing Prime was saying is bad - getting asked a question and not knowing the answer - is how teaching teaches the teacher. That converts an unknown unknown into a known unknown and provides an avenue for the teacher to learn new things as well.
Buuuuutttt... that only works if the teacher is willing and able to say "I don't know" in a way that helps both themselves and the student. They need to be able to overcome any embarrassment they feel, be willing to follow up to find out the thing they didn't know, and remember to get back to the student with the answer (or better yet, work with the student to find the answer if the circumstances allow; eg: if asked during a 1-on-1 chat or small group vs in the middle of a prepared lecture).
_And _ be able to do all that in a fashion that doesn't come across as just an idiot who doesn't understand any of the material and is just regurgitating things they found elsewhere (that appearance is not attached to the reality - they could understand nothing and still come across as competent, or they could know everything aside from the one question and still come across as an idiot - its more a social skills issue than a subject matter issue).
Eventually everyone that is a teacher will be asked a question they don't know the answer to. What prime is saying is ridiculous. No one expects a teacher to know everything. You should start teaching from day one. Lots of research suggests it's a good way to learn.
I’m older than Prime and a developer. Yet, I think Prime is a superior developer.
I’ve over the years divided my time between code, art and music. Yet, recently I’ve been going 100% coding again. There’s a lot of coding I’ve gotten a little lazy about and have a desire to improve and surpass my current level.
IMO, what makes a great developer is always seeking to improve, and finding pleasure in learning.
If you know how to do that, no matter how dumb you are, you'll outperform the others given enough years. It's a marathon, not a sprint!
Also, being good at estimating how much (or how little) you'll need to manage complexity for your current project.
And finally, being willing to challenge pre-established, widespread ideas, while still being able to accept them when your current context plays to their strengths.
No matter how dumb... I somehow doubt you met an actually dumb person before.
Nailed it...!
I agree, but I leave the learning to when I'm working. In my free time, I don't want to sit and learn something that won't benefit my work. I've got other stuff to do!
@@evaldssontom The problem is that you're kinda limited if you only do that. What about for example learning a new language? or a different architecture than the one used at work? Maybe at your work you don't use a queue, but it's useful to know how they work and where would be a good fit. Things like that, IMHO I think that limiting your learning to work will stunt your growth. On the other side I also get your point, maybe you value more having other hobbies and enjoying life in other aspects.
I would say its more like driving a car, a great driver doesnt crash getting from point a to point b, if your program crashes even once, you are a bad programmer.
Travis is positive and encouraging. His message is essentially that people can learn on their own and make a new career out of it. Conversely, many of the "experienced" developers are condescending. Their message is repeatedly that newbies just don't have enough experience, need years more practice, don't have what it takes, etc. How much experience qualifies as 'experienced'? How many years experience does one need before they can teach others? To effectively teach, one must inspire, encourage, and applaud. On one side we have Travis doing that, and on the other we have more experienced, sanctimonious developers spitting venom.
Teavis is a grifter selling courses to lazy people who want a shortcut into engineering. Noting positive about that, just spreading code-monkeyinsm which already hurted this industry.
Perfectly summed up.
Travis is a grifter selling an illusion that self-taughts and bootcamp graduates have a chance to become engineers. Spoiler alert: they don't.
@@vitalyl1327 So no self-taughts work as engineers? Here I thought employers didn't care about pieces of paper, but Vitaly is telling us that's what one needs to be an engineer. The world is filled with people telling you what you can't do. If you listen to them and take their message to heart, they'll always be right.
@@apl1568 in many countries the very title "engineer" is legally defined. Sadly, not for the software engineers. Self-taughts are incompetent and their productivity is negative. The sooner this industry is regulated properly, the better, we must get rid of all the wrong people. Those who work ad "engineers" are impostors and will never become real worthy engineers.
I love that guy's vids He's sooo positive and really helped me feel better about starting
For me, every idea sooner or later leads back to programming. The more paradigms you can wrap your head around, the more tools you have in your pocket the more problems you can solve. So whatever resonates with you or brings you joy. Steal ideas from economics, history, molecular biology math. It is all good and will help you with your programming.
"I was way too into table tennis, ok, I had my own paddle, ..."
That's dedication right there
*cough* or addiction *cough.*
I had an entire table in my basement
“When I do the thing I do the thing”
This is so me, when I say I'm playing games today, I play until I'm satisfied.
When I say I do programming today, I do programming until my eyes close.
This is the most efficient way for me to dive deep into whatever I'm doing.
Problem on YT now is that there are too many new devs, with max 4-5 years experience and trying to teach us things. But the content is full with mistakes, bad practices etc etc.
Have any examples?
I can't agree more to this.... seek and tired of tutorials full of bad practices
@@Salantor Travis is a perfect example. 99% of what he's saying is an utter nonsense.
I think burnout is the result of putting in a lot of hours and never seeing the impact of your work.
100%
14:34 Passion in anything is infectious. I've been coding for more than decade, every time I spend time with people excited about their passion it makes me want to reflect that in my passion for code.
The target video is not about what makes a great developer. It’s really about work/life balance and the propensity, or lack thereof, for being a teacher.
Prime: the elephant in the room is that you should do stand-up comedy. It’s your natural comedic ability that makes you interesting more than anything else. You know it; we know it.
We need more programmer stand ups
All I heard was "You are a comedian, & that's what you should be doing!"
Being funny != Good comedian
@@derekl-m3x
By definition, being funny means being a good comedian. That is the “Prime” element. The rest is things not strictly required, such as showmanship. If you can be funny on stage, you can be a comedian.
@@NaveedAli-n5g
Selective hearing is a personal problem.
The question of "where are all the great developers -- why are they not on YT?" boils down to one thing -- time. It take a lot of time to be a great developer, and very few can be a great developer while still having time for making YT videos and doing everything else in life. Especially as for the first several years it's almost 100% that new YT channels won't really make any money.
"How do you think families are created?" ==D
Experiencing things outside of coding sometimes makes me want to go and code more. For instance, I really enjoy going on walks: "Maybe I'll build a step tracker app just for fun". Then that turns into "Maybe I'll buy an arduino and try to hack together a fitbit prototype." Or, "Maybe I use the geolocation data from my step tracker to recreate my walking path on a minecraft server in realtime" (I don't know why I even thought of that)
You can have a life AND be enthusiastic about programming.
That Minecraft idea is pretty unique
@@viewerguy10 I saw recently one guy coding step counter, where its also send remote mouse click to desktop pc on step while walking outside. Runescape things...
You need help
@@Eepistoo Training agility on irl account an RS at the same time?
20:08 "Is this still a family stream?- YES , HOW DO YOU THINK FAMILIES ARE CREATED?!". Hilarious clip
In a time where most people don't even credit the videos they react to, Prime watches a full blown ad on their video. Huge respect.
He's a streamer and he wants people to watch his ads because he has to make money of his own. The whole streamer concept is just the software version of a street performer
18:20 100% on burnout, got to do more of the things that pump you up.
We have some really interesting projects at work and I dont feel time when working on them but then other times there is monotonous work stuff that just drains the soul.
I find having personal projects that I'm keen on help me through the draining times.
I remember when i learned python list comprehensions. I started doing them _everywhere_ . I knew it was a problem when i made a comprehension from a comprehension.
Yes, it's like when you learn a new thing and fell so proud of yourself that you start puting it everywhere, just to come back one year later to read your code and feel cringe.
Lmao true, but hey, it's good to make those mistakes early, because that will lead you to more readable code in the future, since you already know how ugly it can get.
One of the best ways to learn is to teach. If you know something well enough to teach it then it means you've mastered it. Especially when it comes to coding. If you can teach coding with the right concepts behind something then you can certainly use the technology.
[x] Touch the grass!
I think that this is balanced, to be a Software Engineer you can choose to do your Hobby or programming for fun in your free time!!
The important is there people in the right place, good devs creating content, others creating languages, tools, frameworks, tutorials… and is growing pretty fast!!
Everyone is different. Burn out is real. I like Marty O Donell’s take on burn out. You’re not invincible to being tired or overworked. Sometimes people need to be sent home to separate from work. Even if they love working. Solving one more “problem” is not worth your sanity.
you get burnt out from wasted effort; not from something that accumulates progress.
I program in my time off, I learn new programming skills in my time off. maybe once i get a VERY secure engineering position with good pay, I may relax a bit and pick up my hobbies again.
No, teaching well has nothing to do with you just getting started to learn, but to already have overcome the challenges and realize what your "student" is actually struggling with and then being able to come to their level and build from that. Which is only possible when you have a vast knowledgebase to draw from to be able to connect to their knowledge seemlessly.
Edit: Teaching obviously can be a learning tool with a great opportunity to find knowledge gaps, but this is another use case and requires the partner not to be reliant on your teaching
I agree, that time spent is not particularly related to burnout.
For newer people in code, I think they should be spending a LOT of time coding and learning. And you fight burnout not by taking breaks, but by just moving to things that are exciting, and maybe looping back, or not. But focusing on interesting things.
one thing i realized with overwatch when i only had 2h a week but trying to rank up, and music production when i only make 1 small track per year, is that yes you get rusty and have to spend a day or two getting good habits back, but you also lose /bad/ habits :) I played cleaner and more disciplined each time i came back to the game, and yeah only needed 1 full day to get back on track. For music productioni also seem to keep getting better at it even when not touching FL Studio 11.9 months per year, it's wild.
I feel like I can only ever enter sort of a flow state when I'm working on something that's really fun and engaging, like adding a feature to my game. When it's something like math assignments from university, I'm simply unable to force myself to full focus, I have to have some sort of distraction on my second monitor to get through it.
When I was just starting my uni, we the students would often help each other by teaching things we just learned when some people did get it and some others didn't, and it would almost always work way better than teachers teaching the same thing. I remember on our very first lessons when we were taught binary I was super confused, I asked questions, my questions were answered and I was still as confused, not knowing what to ask even to make it more clear to me. Then I asked my friend for help, and she just knew exactly how to explain it to me, and I was able to easily convert binary-decimal and the other way around after 15 minutes. It's much easier to understand the beginner's struggles when you're a beginner yourself, and it's much easier to know what they need help with and how exactly to explain it to them, while now I'm sure it would be much more difficult for me to help a student who's just beginning with programming, cause I don't know what's hard to understand about concepts I now think of as basic and obvious, we just wouldn't be on the same wave.
deloading in strength sports or rest week in endurance sports is not about taking time off, but about training at low intensity and low volume. You’re still going to the gym or going on a run, you just don’t push yourself
I play the Drums, and Starcraft 2, and workout. And still code after work and on the weekends and maintain many personal open-source projects while maintaining a lead embedded programmer role at work. It's totally possible. I don't have a family though so that's probably why
Just at the 17:00 mark. And I fall into this category, its so important to focus the time when your with your children and family.
There's a definite point about being so comfortable with a concept that you become less able to teach it effectively because you've forgotten why it's difficult in the first place. As long as you understand the concept fully I'd argue you're a better teacher the closer you are to having learnt it.
I agree with this from experience. But I think the criticism is more centered around people that legit don't know the thing well enough yet.
@@FelipeV3444 oh yeah, it was more about his counter to someone's counter in chat XD
He's definitely not wrong over all
what if I am exited about differential equations?
Hello Mr. Prime, I love your content! Sometimes I don't have time to watch your videos on RUclips, so I was wondering if you could create podcasts or maybe convert your videos into audio. This could be a great way to expand your audience-every developer should know about you!
Im distressed now that im about to graduate.
I have no experience but I realized I love learning for the sake of learning, as like its the destination and not just the journey
I don't like to complain about free infotainment on the internet but... I don't understand those videos that could be tweets. Especially when the tweet is "hey, did you guys know about living?". I can't imagine the process of making such a video. It's beyond me really. I always feel robbed of my time. I guess it makes me the jerk but it really puzzles me in an irritating way.
I kind of don't want to put myself out there. I don't want the hassle, if I were to stream I would have to spend time preparing and scripting everything to a high degree I want to produce. Secondly, I would feel my employer might have something to say about me sharing my nuggets of joy.
(Coding since 1984)
1:51 I'm one of those, why am I not teaching ? simple , I'm only good at teaching myself, I'm a very, very specialized teacher that can only teach 1 person, and I'm very good at it, but I'm also bad when trying to teach other people. Its a scaling problem. from 0 to 1, from 1 to many.
Last 3 weeks I've worked from dusk till dawn. Every single day, with short brakes like this and walk. Doing a sprint on a personal project.
My go-to response to questions when teaching is “ read the documentation “
When I was mentoring some 5 years into my career, kids straight out of college could ask some pretty interesting questions, one’s that I hadn’t thought about, so if I didn’t know my response always was: “ I don’t know, but I’ll find out”. And I did make it a point to find out and follow up and thank them for their question 🙋, because it made me think 🤔 also! Roman history?? Their mathematics ( Roman Numerals) does not include zero or infinity, I prefer Egyptian or Chinese which had far more advanced mathematics 🧮 which included zero 0️⃣ ergo bits and bytes!!! - Amy
I have a ton of hobbies, programming is one of them, but I have many. And I find that they go in cycles. So one week I will suddenly get really into drawing and then I’ll draw for the next two weeks and then I’ll get really into game development and the cycle continues. I find it really difficult to finish big projects because my attention span and my passion only go for so long. Now a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have ADHD and autism. So a lot of these are special interest that I hyper fixate on for two weeks. I can push it past two weeks and stay focused for about a month, but by the end of that month, I will be burnt out. It’s not a perfect solution, especially for getting things done but I found it causes the least amount of dissatisfaction because it allows me to do whatever I’m passionate about doing. The good news is that these hobbies always come around so even if I don’t finish a project on the first two weeks or the month I can always leave it and come back to it in a couple months when it comes back around.
2:40 "Books were the original blogs" now imagine saying this statement out of context
Lol! The deloading commentary was hilarious
17:00 Prime is describing what I am current;y doing at work💀
If I don't code for a day, I forget everything I ever learned.
same.
22:50 The sus quote of a generations:
I got to hang out with the children.
The Primeius Genious - 2024
17:20 OKAY with the HOSTILITY gah
Spending time without phone on toilet clears my mind and helps solve a problem
Not taking your phone everywhere you go is so underrated.
It clears more than your mind!
I tried blogging and readers where 10 crawlers and maybe 1 human every other post divisible by 7. Making YT vid sounds like more work with less (more expensive) edits and about the same outcome.
I kinda get where he is coming from, honestly, when I started out I was so dumb it took months for me to click how to make a loop in Java. I kinda wanna say the grand developers make great courses for people who are already smart / they have already cracked how to program.
Travis begun making tutorials when he was a newbie and now likes to give advice how to become a great developer. He has 7 years of experience.
I hope he learns some day that people are different and stops assuming things too much.
"How do you think families are created?" - Best thing I've heard on RUclips for ages.... actual LoL. Thank you.
12:50 There's a really cool anime called "Ping Pong The Animation" it's one of those crazy sports were people get so into it, it's very fun and short.
1.) There's a HUGE difference between teaching and sharing, and I wish people talked about and understood this nuance better.
So for example, I just started learning C+ and Unity, and I'm going deeper with HTML and CSS to create custom code for clients.
In no universe am I qualified to TEACH (impart any knowledge whatsoever) these concepts. I'm a mess. Seriously.
But I can (and do) have a Substack where I document my process. I can share the concepts I'm learning, the principles behind them, how I'm applying them.
In other words, I'm sharing my unique experience of the knowledge, not the knowledge itself.
I've only gotten overwhelming support for my dev journey content because I'm not trying to pretend to be someone I'm not. I don't need to teach. I can document the journey as a beginner, and if another beginner finds it, cool. They can take the same skillshare class and we can swap notes.
2.) Omg I'm OBSESSED with listening to people's obsessions, so I brightened when you mentioned this.
I've had some people say I'm too obsessed with Star Trek and that I don't need to find a Trek example for everything, but I do need to 😂
(I mean, come on, I speak in Klingon with people for fun. I think the ship of casual fan sailed at least two decades ago lol)
In a world where we're told to practice moderation and fit in, I gravitate so much to people who have genuine JOY for their passions. It radiates out of them, and it's infectious.
11:25
"I try not to talk to people outside of work about coding"
*Owns a RUclips channel about coding*
There's a ton of gamedevs making tutorial content, if anything the internet is oversaturated on developer tutorials more than anything else because programming makes content creation significantly easier. If you're a good cook, to be a content creator you also need to know how to write programs, work with different platforms, edit videos and shit. If you are a dev you have some of those skills by default.
I add my UX designer feedback here. I understand about senior developers or people who are effective and found “unplug” or hobby as a way to recharge. But in my team (UX design) we have people who don’t know where a button to create component is. They don’t know basic skills of the main design app we use. I’m not even talking about creation of complex components.
The fill CS Lewis quote seems to be "“Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented.” An Experiment in Criticism" That's a great quote!
@isurvivable the "Grass? Nani?" question is amazing beyond compare. Thank you.
I for one am just not free in sharing everything. Sometimes we end up to a solution that works for us, but have to go about the rest of our day, just to have that little golden nugget shimmer in the darkness of past time.
20:08 I bursted with tears, best joke 2024 Q2
"In this blog post, I will now type out the things I read in another blog post and teach you coding."
I love how the chat went crazy with "smoking meat"
Sometimes you just got to get away from the damn keyboard. MTBing and adventure bike riding is my getting away from it all. And yes, I am a Gen Xer. One day you will wake up and come to the realisation that computers can be really boring if you do it all the time.
One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. So, if you do not know it (whatever it is) then teach it.
In doctor training they use the see one, do one, teach one method to learn practical processes.
Very useful to watch this because it gave a different perspective on things. But I think this is one place where he kind of missed the point. He is somebody who enjoys coding outside of work but he also got to do other things at a very high level, table tennis for example. I think the original video is about people who code outside of work because they feel like they have to, not because they enjoy it.
But, again, very useful to see the perspective of somebody who does enjoy coding as both work and hobby. Also, I really like the take on how people get burned out, the idea about reward and not time I believe is spot on.
Another thing that interesting is that expert usually suck at teaching beginners stuff since they usually forget which part that beginners are struggling. Like there is no way that haskell enthusiast can teach recursion to python bro
James Rolfe is a software dev too?
... Angry video game nerd?
"...and some people just aren't personal enthusiasts about programming..."
And some of us USED to be, but got it beaten out of us by the corporate grind.
And I'm going to change my id to "Meatbag".
17:25 Got ya, I have to stop watching Prime videos in background while working
Cutting Horses and amateur BBQ cook here. I am the guy who needs the away time to do peak work when I’m programming. I’d probably be most productive working for about two months straight followed by a couple months off
I have 3 suggestions for you today:
walk works for him
Do as much as you can everything you love.
Know what you love to do.
If you have kids PLEASE be aware these little fellas will be out of your life in 15 years and that's nothing. REALLY. Nothing. So get to KNOW that you love to be with the kids.
Do what you love, life is short.
It's funny how he is like "I'm ADHD, programming is my special interest and since I don't have burnout, no one will ever have burnout". Part of discovering that you are neurodivergent is understanding our minds are not going to work the same way. Then, we should NOT make claims for others based on personal experiences (unless you can really see that in others, not only you).
Amen. One size does not fit all.
Is he saying "no one will ever have burnout"? Or is he saying that, no matter what you do, if you do it in a way that's not enjoyable to you in the long run, you will be burnt out. All he is saying is basically "stop making excuses and actually think about how to approach this in a better way, rather than beating your head into a brick wall for years and wondering why your heard hurts afterwards".
@@lynwoodcallahan7286 well no. He's saying "you must proceed like this, or you'll burnout". See... I've been programming for 45 years. I haven't burnt out. I program in my spare time. So... he's wrong for me at least. I suspect others are the same. He's saying "this makes sense to me". That doesn't mean it applies to everyone.
@@lynwoodcallahan7286 pretty sure it's the first option. And he's admittedly not an experienced programmer. So why is he giving advice about how to be one? I'm not saying he's wrong... for some people. I *am* saying he's not right for everyone. Walk your dog if that helps. Program harder if that helps is my point. Why give advice about something you don't have experience with?
I definitely agree on the burnout take. I burned out more because of the quality of my activities, not the quantity.
Reason why I would not watch the ad is that if I watch it and his sponsor is happy, what do they do? Push for space for a second ad, and a third ad, and another ad... remember how TV ad breaks were 5 minutes long? Well, check how long those blocks are today... at least over here in Europe
Prime is just a super cool dude, respect.
"We live in such a world where we get the benefit and the opportunity to even have hobbies.", - ThePrimeTime
Amen brother.
I just enjoy doing, not making videos or writing about doing. I'll talk 1-on-1 with folks about doing, but I'm not going to spend time polishing material for a wide audience.
Grabbing hacker's delight, while I really loved my initial impression of C, it gradually faded from the degrees of separation.
19:30 "I did not mean to draw a dk" lol
hey prime, how those drop voicings going huh? Guitar good?
Guitar when
I suffer from the opposite. I have 10 "main" hobbies (including programming itself) and... I don't know... 20+ additional interests. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't have the time to do them consistently even if I didn't have to work, but I just can't get myself to drop any of them completely for a period of more then a month because those "distractions" in aggregate are the only thing that makes my job (not work, which I actually very much enjoy) tolerable. Sometimes I get bummed out because if I could somehow mitigate the burnout without diversifying my activities so much it would certainly make me more "successful" but thankfully mourning that hypothetical success never lasts long.
what do you enjoy doing best of all?
@@sila_v_malenkih_shagah293 whatever spent the most time in cool-down at the moment. Everything just comes and goes almost beyond my control. %)
Over the years I've just learned to roll with it - it's to late to change anyway...
@@sila_v_malenkih_shagah293 mostly whatever spent the most time in "cool-down"... everything just comes as it goes with almost no control on my part.
Over the years I just learned to roll with it - too late to change anyway.
I have a family. The other 128 hours of my week belong to them.
Quality over quantity bro
@@azmo_ ^not a father
@@azmo_ Cool cliché bro. Did you get it from a fortune cookie?
Teaching solidifies learning
It's crazy that someone with no experience is teaching.
We are in the dickfunnels and Tony Robbins era: sell a sucky course on a subject you know nothing about because "you can do it too, believe in yourself".
Why would that be crazy?
It is absolutely fine if both parties are aware of the scope of knowledge the teacher has.
Lets say I don't know how a for loop works.
I am ok with this kind of thing being explained by a junior dev.
There are levels to learning.
Sometimes you want to get your foot in the door, some times you want an opinion from more experienced people.
What is not OK is if the teaching party pretends to know more than they do.
I think the issue that many beginners coders have is that they are not into coding this much. and I'm one of them and I always try to do just code and coding stuff and I just can't
it's nice to be in a profession that is ruled by objective logic and product, and not subjective people pleasing
Travis jumped the shark when he switched from JavaScript and started pontificating from his e-pulpit about how we all need to start writing everything in Rust .. because he read somewhere that its “safe”
Competing in a table tennis match against someone with as much energy as prime sounds terrifying
What was your highest USATT rating?
I misread the title "What Make a Game Developer" but I agree that both of them doesn't AND shouldn't create content. It need a substance, an essence.
20:06 That's how families are created!
Many people good at doing things aren’t good teachers … the new style of podcasts and video casting are often better for those who can at least show what they do even if can’t explain it well
with respect to noob developers teaching, I'm pretty sure 3blue1brown said this, but you can still make educational videos as somebody new to whatever field you're teaching. you just have to make it very clear that the video isn't made from a position of authority, it's more as a summary of your explorations in a topic.