What is this?
This is intended to be a scratch pad for ideas and things I find interesting, want to talk with others about or would like to give myself a reason to explore. Expect things to be improved upon and ideas to be revisited as needed. No ideas or thoughts are final and everything is open to revision or update.
The main idea is to share and discuss things with others improving ideas and adding more insights along the way. This will hopefully result in more productive outcomes in shorter periods of time than trying to think about things alone. It will also give an opportunity for people with different experiences, backgrounds, understandings, views of the problems, views the solutions, to discuss and come up with novel solutions that wouldn’t have been possible alone.
This could mean and probably should mean multiple implementation and experiments to solve problems different ways and maybe meet the needs of different end users. The idea here is to provide a full feedback loop and continue to improve beyond a first discussion. That means not only discussing something but actually doing something about it and learning from that. Continuing the process indefinitely if needed.
I would like for this to be a place where things are not only discussed but attempted and tested. Where you can stand behind your idea with a demo and get feedback so it can be improved if possible. This does not mean a single “best” solution of everyone either, there should and will be solutions that fit different use cases better than others. With that there should be the ability to talk about why tradeoffs or different decisions where made so that others can have a better understanding.
This should also be open to people of all experience levels and any question should be respected if it is made with the intention to learn and improve.
No one here is superior to anyone else, it is my firm belief that great ideas, great people and great anything can come from anywhere with any background. You don’t get to override a question because you have more experience or a better title. The question should stand on its own and if you have a good response then provide it or a link to where you have already answered it.
The goal here is for everyone to improve that can mean different things. Referring people to relevant information, showing them where this idea may have already been attempted and the learnings from that attempt. Explaining personal experience, please refrain from trying to mask personal preference as fact or something else. Just say it’s your opinion or preference, those can be valuable but do not misrepresent them.
The way people should help others there.
Help them improve, provide information, material, examples and other things that could be relevant for someone who wants it. Provide things to do or areas to improve in and maybe a standard you would like to see. This isn’t a way to exclude others but a way to show effort from both sides. The other party should take the time to read the material and then continue the conversation.
Then what I think is the key in the transition. Help the other person to get to a point where they match you. This means teaching them everything you know. This is typically far more hands on and time consuming but can have the biggest rewards for both sides. This means sometimes at the beginning continually helping the person until they understand enough to improve on their own and you don’t need to be as hands on but can still check in and make sure progress is being made and corrections and assistance is still provided.
Then at the end I believe this is the most important part and what seems to be missed most. At then end when the person you have been helping has reached your level of proficiency push them and give them the freedom to surpass and improve on the skill on their own. This means acknowledging the transition that you may no longer know more than the person in this area and you could have things to learn from them now. This then means asking that person to help you improve if you want to get better in that area again.
Hopefully in the end this experience is documented and made available in a form that others can learn from so they can also improve. The goal here should be to reduce the time to get to the forefront of a field then you can work at moving things forward so the same missteps aren’t made multiple times.
I want to see what comes of this and hope that some interesting ideas and projects can happen because of it.
Writing
Also I am aware that my writing needs to improve and that is a personal goal for me. Helpful feedback is welcome, recommended books all those kinds of things. Corrections to articles and improvements will be made along the way as well so hopefully the overall quality improves as well.