Straightforward & Simple: The beginning of a quest for knowledge

If you’re like me, one of the things you find particularly annoying is trying to learn a new subject in software engineering. Why is that? not because I don’t like learning, on the contrary. The problem with new subjects in software engineering is that they’re often explained and defined by software engineers.

Now, this might not seem like a very serious problem, except that software engineers tend to live and breathe software engineering. This might not seem like a problem either, but it actually is! The problem with people who work in complicated fields is that they tend to take a lot of concepts for granted. And that makes sense because you can’t build complicated structures in your mind without using pre-acquired knowledge.
The result, however, is the same. The “student” has a difficult time making the necessary logical leaps the “teacher” makes, thus failing to fully grasp the new topic and its complexities.

What I’m planning to do, in this upcoming series of an unknown amount of articles, is to break down various concepts, mostly in software engineering, but not only, into clear digestible chunks anybody can understand.

Photo by matthew Feeney on Unsplash

I believe acquiring knowledge, as complex as it may be, is something everybody can do. The only thing that we need is the willingness to learn and a growth mindset.

The main obstacle to acquiring new knowledge and skills, in my opinion, is not a lack of IQ, but rather our limiting beliefs dictating what is possible for us, and what seems to be out of reach.

The second-largest obstacle is the abundance of resources we have online.
This, like people who are experts in their fields explaining things, might seem like a very positive thing, and it is. The problem is, knowledge is now engulfed by vast amounts of noise. That creates a fascinating paradox. We have every piece of knowledge we will ever need at our fingertips. And, at the same time, it can feel so hard to decide where to learn from. The paradox of choice takes hold and we end up either giving up altogether or learning from a terrible resource. The problem with terrible resources, other than them being terrible, is that they can often reinforce our limiting beliefs about learning. Making us feel like we’ll never be able to learn that specific skill and sometimes makes us give up on an entire field of knowledge. It happened to me with software engineering. Only after I found a comprehensive resource, which made things simple and had the appropriate rate of progression, did I discover my love for software engineering.

Since I know how this feels, I decided to start deconstructing topics I’m learning, to provide a clear resource you can come to, knowing it will explain things clearly and concisely.

I will write the articles and improve their clarity using the Feynman Technique, or at least an approximation of it, to make sure it’s the last thing you’ll need to read on a given topic.

So, let go of your limiting beliefs and join me in the quest for knowledge!