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In this issue, I propose that learning is not a spectator sport. I have a coupon code for free access to The Server Room, and another bunch of great reads.
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Mentor Monologue
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If you want to grow your skills, you'll have to accept that learning isn't a spectator sport. It's a contact sport. If you want to boost your know-how and with it your career, find a group that helps you reach your goals.
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I don't doubt that in this day and age, we have more learning resources available to ourselves than anyone ever had. There are countless video guides, blog tutorials and tech wikis only waiting to be consumed. And that's the rub. Consuming content just isn't the same as learning. Acquiring knowledge on your own is a challenging task. On the other hand, there is ample scientific evidence that learning with others can be much more effective and, let's not forget, more fun.
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Learning faster
When you study learning materials seriously, you'll inevitably end up with questions. Ideally, you'd have someone who you can ask right at the time they come up. But that's usually only possible in a classroom or a live course setting. The second best situation is to have a group of other students with whom you can share your questions. Maybe someone else already found the answers; and if not, you can find them as a team. In both cases, you'll be able to continue your learning confident that you didn't leave any gaps in your understanding that might turn into a roadblock later.
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Sharing ideas
You'll generate much more than just questions, though. If your learning goes well, it'll result in lots of insight. When you get to share this insight with peers, it will not only be bonus learning material for the whole group, it'll also add to your own sense of accomplishment. This exchange of ideas makes learning a lot more fun. Once it gets going, it can turn into a flywheel effect of motivation for everyone to find more things to share with the group.
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Support and accountability
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Self-study sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it? You get all the learning materials, and you process them in your own time. In reality, your chances of success with self-guided learning can be pretty slim. At least, that's my experience. Please do not make me check my email archive to see how many self-study courses I've signed up for but never even started, let alone finished. Life gets in the way, I know, that's not the problem. The problem is getting back on track again after the coast is clear again. There are simply so many things competing for our time and attention that we might forget to continue where we left off.
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Another challenge is not getting discouraged when we're having trouble understanding a particular concept. Depending on your situation, you might find it hard to muster the gumption to push through.
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Sharing your progress regularly with a group of peers can be a great help with not letting your learning fall by the wayside. You can ask them to keep you accountable, and reciprocate accordingly. And a group that gives you empathy and encouragement when you're feeling frustrated is worth its weight in gold.
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Different perspectives
In a past newsletter, I mentioned the myth of a person who marooned on an island with only a chess board, and who returned ten years later as a grand master. This story tries to suggest that all it takes to master a topic is time. Which is not true at all. Among other things, mastery requires looking at a topic from many angles. But often, we're limited by our own blind spots and biases. It's in the discussion with others where we get to learn different perspectives that we couldn't come up with by ourselves.
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Teamwork
Finally, on a meta level, learning with a group is a learning opportunity in itself. It allows you to gain communication and collaboration skills while you're doing your own learning. For example, you'll improve your ability to ask effective questions. You'll adopt problem-solving skills demonstrated by someone else. The list of benefits is endless.
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But there's one benefit that I'd like to highlight: the possibility of developing relationships, even friendships, that will have long-lasting value well beyond any specific learning goal.
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In a word: When you go on your next learning journey, try and share it with others. As the saying goes: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
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Changelog
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Last week, I officially launched The Server Room! 🎊🎆🥂
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More on this in the new community section below!
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In The Server Room
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Just a few days after the official launch, we already have some interesting first write-ups from our founding members. (Being able to compose long-form posts in Markdown is such an improvement over the limitations of Discord!) I'm also cross-posting my blog entries to the forum so we can discuss them in the comments.
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Have you considered joining The Server Room? As a newsletter subscriber, you can use the coupon code "2C4657C9C9" at checkout to get the first month of your membership for free! The code is for a BRONZE subscription; you can upgrade it to a higher level at any time if you like. (But don't wait for too long with signing up; the coupon will expire at the end of the month.)
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Recommended reading
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As an online teacher, I always recommend additional material to my students with which they can expand their horizon. Here's a list of reading tips I've curated for you.
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When do developers get some rest? When Github is down. Yeah, so much for "decentralized source control"! An interesting alternative with a fresh approach is Radicle. It's an open source, peer-to-peer code collaboration stack built on Git, designed to put users in full control of their data and workflow.
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On a side note, I love that the Radicle team uses Zulip as their chat system!
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Managing an engineering team has a lot of nuances. In this article, Ben Werdmuller takes a look at three specific angles: organizational context, team leadership, and technology trends.
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It is a bit surprising that Molly White, author of the highly critical "Web3 is Going Just Great", isn't completely opposed to genAI and LLM. In this article, she actually offers a more nuanced perspective. But still, it pushed me over to cancel my Copilot subscription.
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"There is one silver bullet for product development—the speed of team learning time." Johanna Rothmann argues that culture is more effective in speeding up product development than any new tool or method.
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In case you're wondering how SRE looks like in practice, here's a great example! This article by the Meta engineering team explains in depth why and how Meta engineers implemented a simplified alternative to the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) that does the same job, but more efficiently.
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Thanks for reading!
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I hope you found my News from The Server Room enjoyable and helpful. If you have any feedback or questions, simply reply to this email!
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Jochen, the Monospace Mentor
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