[erlang-questions] Erlang and the learning curve

Toby Thain toby@REDACTED
Sat Jan 15 05:17:54 CET 2011


On 11-01-15 12:40 AM, Ryan Zezeski wrote:
> Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years! (or the next ones free)
> 
> http://norvig.com/21-days.html
> 
> Neat side story...For those of you who know the name Hunter S. Thompson you
> might be interested to know the he learned to write by typing out Hemingway
> word for word, letter for letter.  

Do you have a citation for that? Curious if true, but...

I've used that fact as a reminder that
> the act of doing is the best teacher.  If you're not failing everyday, then
> you're not trying hard enough.

...how can one "fail" at typing out Hemingway letter by letter, apart
from occasionally fat fingering a key?

I think one probably _can_ learn a lot about writing by thoughtfully
copying out good writing. But there seems to be no "fail-retry-learn"
loop in it. That comes when one tries WRITING... :)

--Toby

  Success isn't nearly as insightful as
> failure.
> 
> -Ryan
> 
> On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Robert Virding <
> robert.virding@REDACTED> wrote:
> 
>> This whole dscussion reminds a little of the Paul Graham essay "Beating the
>> Averages", http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html , where he discusses the
>> Blub paradox.
>>
>> Robert
>>
>>
> 



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