0:01

Learning never stops, but neither does

0:03

the work. So

0:05

when we need to brush up on our skills or

0:08

pick up newer ones, it's hard

0:10

to even take the time to choose a path or

0:12

a focus. It doesn't matter if

0:14

you're new to the field or you've been

0:16

around for a while. Learning takes time, and

0:18

sometimes it doesn't go the way we planned.

0:21

But innovations are always happening.

0:24

Things are changing. New platforms,

0:26

new programming languages, frameworks, applications.

0:29

We still need to make time for this unrequired

0:33

requirement. So

0:35

how should we approach it? How can we

0:37

fit it into our busy lives without it feeling

0:39

like it's a chore? This

0:47

is Compiler, an original podcast

0:49

from Red Hat. I'm

0:51

Brent Siminoe. And I'm Angela Andrews. We

0:54

go beyond the buzzwords and jargon

0:57

and simplify tech topics. Today,

0:59

we're talking about learning. Let's

1:06

see what producer Kim Huang has for

1:09

us. I spoke

1:11

with two people for this episode

1:13

to look at continuing education from

1:16

multiple angles. I'm Soumya Singh. I'm

1:18

from India. And here at Red

1:20

Hat, I work as a software

1:22

engineer. Hi, I'm Josh

1:24

Goldberg. I'm a full-time independent

1:27

open source maintainer. I'm also

1:29

the author of Learning TypeScript and a

1:31

Microsoft MVP for developer technologies. And

1:34

I have a few cats. We'll start

1:36

off with Soumya. Soumya

1:39

likes to use social media

1:41

to provide educational content about

1:43

application development and other topics.

1:46

From the university days, I have

1:48

been very much into, you know,

1:51

teaching students how to code, into

1:53

creating educational content. So I keep

1:55

teaching people with the help of

1:58

my blogs, my videos. People

2:00

usually, you know, prefer studying

2:02

maybe from books or such

2:05

stuff. That's a traditional way of

2:07

learning something new. But in

2:09

the 21st century, every person

2:11

has a smartphone in their hands.

2:14

I love the advancement and

2:16

I myself have been benefited and

2:18

that's how and why I decided

2:21

to, you know, teach people

2:23

using these platforms. One

2:25

thing that stuck out to me

2:27

while making this episode was the

2:29

role of open source in containment

2:32

education. Samya talks

2:34

a little bit about how the

2:36

open source community came together to

2:38

help each other learn Kotlin, a

2:41

programming language for mobile app development.

2:44

So the people in the community who

2:46

were interested in learning that language, they

2:49

started kind of sharing their progress,

2:51

their updates. And then you learn

2:53

in a community now, so you

2:56

don't even lose motivation. I

2:58

mean, you see other developers sharing

3:00

their updates, sharing their progress, everything in

3:02

that channel. So even if you are from

3:04

the like, oh, I'm not, I

3:07

don't feel like studying or I don't

3:09

feel like learning when people will post

3:11

in the community, we'll see their posts,

3:13

their message. You will firstly learn things.

3:16

Secondly, that will inspire you as well

3:18

to do the same thing, right? So

3:20

in my case, I'm in the open

3:22

source community's head. The note and

3:25

Josh agrees. You get exposed

3:27

to technology like that of otherwise you get

3:29

to work with people online. Sometimes people who

3:31

are making the tech you want to get

3:33

a job with. And it's a really nice

3:35

excuse to work on projects. Angela,

3:39

how do you envision open

3:42

source as part of someone's like

3:44

ongoing education? How we Angela

3:46

first. Well, open

3:49

source, the concept and

3:51

open source, the way

3:54

that we learn and people contribute to

3:56

that learning. I think they're two different

3:58

things, right? Okay. In this

4:00

respect, we're talking using open source as a

4:02

tool for learning. That

4:05

is the best way to learn, in my

4:07

opinion. Being in

4:09

a community of other like-minded

4:11

learners. Being able

4:13

to be open and honest, being

4:15

able to give and receive feedback

4:18

in a non-judgmental environment, that

4:20

is so important. I

4:23

have been lucky enough to have been

4:25

a part of a ton of different

4:27

communities where we were all learning something

4:29

together and reaching out to each other,

4:32

helping each other, growing together,

4:35

succeeding together, bringing up when people

4:38

have issues, bringing people up with

4:40

you like no person left behind

4:42

type of thing. To me, those

4:45

are the best ways to

4:47

learn. The way Samia's describing

4:50

her experience, it sounds very

4:52

familiar to me. Yeah,

4:55

definitely. I couldn't agree more. I don't

4:57

have a lot of experience doing open

4:59

source projects, but I definitely

5:02

identify with this feeling

5:04

of we're all in it together and nobody

5:07

wants to... We're all

5:09

kind of working individually, but we're

5:11

also collaborating. There's no reason as to

5:13

why learning can't be disseminated. It can't

5:16

be a sharing kind of experience, a

5:18

collaborative experience, where you're all

5:20

in it together and you're all working

5:22

towards maybe not the same goal, but definitely

5:24

to acquire the same skill. I agree.

5:30

Choosing what to learn can be a

5:33

struggle. There's so many different projects out

5:35

there, so many different types of technology.

5:38

Samia has a really interesting story from

5:40

her college days about how she decided

5:42

that path she was going to take. Most

5:45

of my friends were going with

5:47

machine learning because that was world

5:49

at that time. I

5:51

kind of was confused between four things mainly

5:53

mobile application development, web

5:56

development, EIN, MLD, four were

5:58

the most confusing things. So

6:00

I gave one week to each

6:02

of this to do complete research

6:05

on four or five parameters, like number

6:08

one, which language is

6:10

used in all these technologies,

6:12

like for application development, Java,

6:15

Kotlin, as well, in WebHDM

6:17

and CSS, those are stuff, then

6:19

MLAI like Python. And

6:21

that really detailed process

6:23

that I'm very impressed with. Me

6:26

too. So, Samia,

6:28

discover what she was most

6:30

passionate about. After

6:33

jotting down everything, I

6:36

was like, I am very

6:38

much interested into learning how to

6:40

develop mobile application. And I

6:43

was like, I don't care if people

6:45

are running after AI, ML, whatsoever, but

6:48

I want to learn

6:50

how to develop these applications. I love that.

6:53

I love the fact that she was so self-aware. Self-aware.

6:57

Yeah, self-aware. Yeah. I

7:00

think it's really impressive that she thought of doing something

7:02

like that, that she asked questions from

7:04

other people. She outsourced the information. She

7:07

asked questions and then did the research. I

7:09

think it's really a great way to kind of

7:11

understand not just what to

7:13

learn, but also what speaks to you and

7:16

what about the thing that you're trying to

7:18

learn speaks to your personality or you

7:20

as a person. I

7:25

really do appreciate how she was able

7:27

to give it the time

7:29

that it deserved, right? Yeah. She

7:32

said she dedicated a week

7:35

into researching these topics. And

7:37

in a week, you can cover a lot of ground.

7:40

And I'm betting you, during that week,

7:43

she found a lot of things in

7:45

a lot of these other subjects that

7:47

don't interest her in the slightest. So

7:50

we get to learn what we

7:52

love and what speaks to us, but

7:54

we also get to learn what we are

7:56

not the slightest bit interested in and we don't

7:58

want to waste our time. You

10:00

don't make any problem statement that

10:03

you're given much simpler if you

10:05

can break it down into smaller.

10:07

More manageable parts. A

10:09

really strongly identified with with Josh the

10:12

Se because I feel like that's but

10:14

I do here when I'm thinking about

10:16

learning something that I didn't know before,

10:18

breaking it up into smaller bits. And

10:20

and I wasn't I didn't realize that

10:22

some he was. It's your right to

10:24

the essentially saying the same thing of

10:27

doing you know, doing the ground work

10:29

and then breaking it down and six

10:31

hundred little cable. What? What languages are

10:33

popular, What's platforms are popular? What do

10:35

I have to learn in order to

10:37

acquired this certain skillset? So yeah, That's

10:40

really cool. I mean it's if you

10:42

think about it's a lot like riding a

10:44

syllabus for yourself in our an affair. It's

10:46

like own. But. I have

10:48

preferred a lot. I'm going to help

10:50

you. I had don't. Have been

10:52

in a ton of study group that

10:54

I had led and I find that

10:57

creating a syllabus which set. Our.

10:59

Intention never need you mean really? Does

11:02

it make it look like oh my

11:04

God for the next two. Months we're

11:06

going to be doing. All this no breaks

11:08

out of a really complex and a smaller

11:10

tugged Federer. Like manageable and you can fall

11:12

exactly. And these are these small. Little the small

11:14

little bit pieces are. We only have to do

11:17

this this week. No big deal

11:19

in our know when you know how do

11:21

you eat an elephant. One bite at his

11:23

high. that's so important. That works for me.

11:25

And it's it's It's a tried and true.

11:31

Zeus told. Me a story

11:34

right where he was trying to

11:36

understand something eternal. Learn something for

11:38

the purposes of getting a promotion.

11:41

And his manager stepped in

11:43

and help Sam identify his

11:45

own goals around learning and

11:47

competencies that he would need

11:49

to achieve those goals. In

11:51

that situation, Josh made an

11:53

important discovery about himself. one

11:55

of the things that they helped me with

11:58

was setting down what the competencies artwork niche

12:00

of them. I noticed that I was

12:02

putting a lot of effort into a competency that I was

12:04

already hitting the next level at. I did not need to

12:06

keep working on it, but I enjoyed it. So I was

12:08

still putting a lot of time into it. So

12:11

I was given the good advice

12:13

to pull back on that to do less investment

12:15

in this path, even though it's what I am

12:17

really enjoying at the time, because it's not what

12:19

I actually need to get the promotion. Angela,

12:22

you were recently promoted.

12:25

I sure was. Does

12:28

this resonate with you at all? Like, did you? It

12:30

does. It does. I mean,

12:32

preparing for a promotion, you have

12:34

to look at what

12:37

the metrics are for

12:39

your promotion. And you

12:41

have to figure out where are you in

12:43

these competencies? How are you excelling? Are you

12:46

doing like Josh said, are

12:48

you doing too much of this and not

12:50

enough of that? You have

12:52

to kind of balance it out because

12:55

they want to see this

12:57

more well-rounded, more accomplished person

13:01

to elevate them into a position, right?

13:03

So again, the thing that

13:05

you'd love to do, that's great. But if

13:07

it is what is, you're

13:10

missing other things. And

13:12

your manager, thank goodness, was

13:14

able to point that out to

13:16

him and say, you should probably

13:19

invest less time here, invest more

13:21

time here, because that really will

13:24

up your chances. This will help

13:26

you become more well-rounded and you'll

13:28

hit more competencies that way. So

13:31

yes, this sounds so familiar. I

13:36

can relate very strongly to being

13:39

fixated on something that I do

13:41

really well because it feels comfortable

13:43

and not focusing on the thing

13:45

that I need to do because

13:47

it's uncomfortable or because it's something

13:49

I've never done before. I feel

13:51

that too, Kim. Yeah, that's really,

13:53

really relatable because we, you know, it's

13:55

and it's not a bad thing to

13:58

be good at something and be and

14:00

knowing that you're good at something. But

14:03

I wanted to know, like, how

14:05

do you get away from being

14:07

fixated on something that you really,

14:09

really are good at, but may

14:11

not be serving you, especially

14:13

if you have a particular goal in

14:15

mind? Well, you have to

14:17

decide what's important at the time. If

14:20

your goal is important to you, you

14:23

have to decide, am

14:25

I going to do the uncomfortable things? Am

14:27

I going to do the things that

14:30

don't feel like my second skin?

14:32

Because if we're being honest with

14:34

ourselves, that's where the growth

14:36

happens. If you're already expelling somewhere,

14:38

and that's your niche, and that's

14:41

your thing, well, you've

14:43

invested all this time, you're good at it, you

14:45

don't even have to think about it. But

14:47

the growth happens when you're challenged,

14:50

when you are given the opportunity

14:52

to shine in another way. And

14:55

to show that you're not a one-trick

14:57

pony. You can do multiple things. So

15:00

I agree. It's hard

15:03

to turn off that

15:05

feel-good mechanism, like, oh, this feels good, I'm

15:07

gonna do this is what I'm gonna spend

15:09

my time. It's hard to turn that off.

15:11

But you have to look at the

15:13

whole picture. Where am I trying to

15:16

go? What goal am I trying to

15:18

accomplish? And if that goal entails you

15:20

doing something that is uncomfortable, lean

15:22

into it. That's where the growth

15:25

happens. I will

15:27

say, as a manager, and

15:29

I've experienced this myself personally, I

15:31

have also seen people lean

15:34

in the other direction a little too far. So

15:37

they're so concerned with their weaknesses, right?

15:39

And they just get really fixated on

15:41

trying to get better and fix this,

15:43

and fix this, and fix this. That

15:45

they're not really leaning into their strengths

15:48

as much, you know? And

15:50

so really leaning into what you're good

15:52

at is also really important, you

15:54

know? So it's like, you don't wanna

15:56

get fixated on like, either one

15:58

completely, you have to. hold those things

16:00

in balance. That's true. That's true.

16:02

But I totally emphasized with what

16:05

you just said. Yeah, I've been

16:07

there. We don't

16:09

want to just be basic.

16:11

We don't want to be struggling.

16:14

Because those

16:16

facets of our careers or

16:18

our job, we know how

16:21

important they are. We don't want to

16:23

suck at it. And we don't want to

16:25

be that one, that person, right? So I

16:27

get the whole, oh my god, I'm going

16:29

to fixate on this. And I can tell

16:31

you, it is not the way to go.

16:35

It does feel more fond and good. So yes,

16:37

I feel that deeply. We

16:42

have to strike a balance. What

16:45

I'm hearing a lot from our guests and from

16:47

our conversation here is that learning

16:50

requires a lot of self-awareness

16:52

and a lot of introspection.

16:54

Indeed. Right, Kim? We

16:57

really have to look at the person in the mirror.

16:59

And figure ourselves out

17:02

when we're learning. Yes, exactly.

17:05

But looking at oneself

17:07

in the mirror and deciding on what

17:09

path to take, and when

17:11

you decide that path, it's time to

17:14

start studying. But learning something new can

17:16

also be overwhelming and

17:18

scary. And when people look

17:21

inside themselves for direction, they

17:23

can encounter some negative thoughts. Thinking,

17:26

thinking. Yeah. And

17:29

it's easy to get this false impression that everyone does

17:31

everything. And then you get this

17:34

even worse false impression that you are somehow

17:36

lacking because you don't have these particular positive

17:38

things that get pulled down as nice and

17:40

or common in others. When

17:44

we come back, we'll unpack some ways

17:47

to address the negative thinking around learning

17:49

new skills. Oh, I can't wait. We're

17:58

talking about learning new things. And

18:00

that can get people out of their comfort zone.

18:04

What if you start out and it's not going well? Probably

18:07

everyone can relate to that. Being

18:09

bad at something that you're learning. Angela's

18:11

raising her hand. Yeah,

18:15

I should also be raising my hand. Because

18:18

in the moment, it doesn't feel great.

18:21

And it may give a person a

18:23

reason to stop doing what they're doing,

18:26

do something else, or not

18:28

do anything at all. Even

18:30

someone as brilliant as Samya,

18:32

who interacts with thousands of

18:34

people on social media all

18:36

the time about education, even

18:39

she knows that feeling. You

18:42

feel like, oh my god, I mean,

18:44

I can't do this. That

18:47

kind of team motivation and that

18:49

fear that, oh, like coding is not for

18:51

me. How will I cope up with this?

18:54

I don't feel like doing it

18:57

anymore. Those things are very common.

19:00

Josh has some advice for people who

19:02

are thinking of calling it quits.

19:05

I'd say first, let's really examine

19:07

why the failure is happening. Sometimes

19:10

you'll say something that

19:12

your brain is just not well suited to at

19:14

the time. It might be that it's just

19:16

a topic that you don't talk well with. Like, that's fine.

19:19

It might be that you're not in a good mental

19:21

space. Like, if you're in a really stressful time in

19:23

your life and you're trying to do something and that

19:25

never goes well. Figuring out

19:28

the why. Yeah. There

19:30

are a lot of reasons why this might not be going well. Yeah.

19:33

How do you deal with it though? How

19:36

do you deal with trying to learn something and

19:38

it's not going smoothly or easily?

19:40

I want to pick on Angela for this

19:42

because I know that she has a lot

19:44

of experience with this. It

19:47

is easy to quit, especially

19:49

if you're learning something that

19:51

is something you're interested in.

19:54

What if it's about your job?

19:57

What if you have to learn something that... is

20:00

a part of your role and

20:02

you cannot wrap your head around

20:05

it. Oh God. I

20:08

have been there and there. Wait,

20:11

what did you do? I

20:13

am struggling. And

20:16

what I'm doing exactly what

20:18

you think someone would do. You

20:20

avoid it. You

20:22

find other things. And

20:24

what happens is you're dragging

20:26

out this process. It's not

20:28

going anywhere. There's just

20:31

new versions of it coming out

20:33

and you're like, Oh God. Now I have to,

20:35

so it is a terrifying

20:37

feeling. And I'll tell you another

20:39

thing. When

20:42

you are afraid of

20:44

failing, it is

20:46

such a heavy anchor

20:49

around you. It

20:51

clouds everything. And I'd

20:54

like to talk about this more because you

20:57

have to examine like Josh said, why

20:59

is the failure happening? What is the

21:01

disconnect? Why aren't you getting it? And

21:05

what are the things that you need

21:07

to do to examine? Is

21:11

it what's going on with you

21:13

personally? Is it the content? Is

21:15

it the how the

21:17

contents presented? Like, yeah, how do we

21:19

get out of this feeling?

21:23

I think we need to have this discussion

21:25

because Samia hit it

21:27

on the head. It is so

21:29

common. But what

21:32

do we do with it? Yeah, I

21:34

find myself sometimes in spaces

21:36

where other people were

21:38

all together kind of learning something new

21:41

and the levels of familiarity or exposure

21:43

to the topic may be different from

21:45

person to person. It just

21:47

feels like each one of us had, you know,

21:49

where all of our brains are different and it's

21:52

like you all kind of need

21:54

like a special key to unlock learning at

21:56

some at some point. Like I know in

21:59

my life. It's just

22:01

been a matter of finding out different

22:03

methods of understanding a topic or understanding

22:05

a certain concept and then just finding

22:07

that one key that unlocks it for me. And

22:09

that's kind of how learning

22:12

has always happened with me and the

22:14

things that I've studied in

22:16

the past. I will say when

22:18

I am in this space, my

22:21

house is like the

22:24

cleanest it ever is. Because you're

22:26

avoiding. Because I'm avoiding and all

22:28

I'm doing is like vacuuming and

22:30

cleaning and it's like everything. I

22:32

agree. Everything but. Everything

22:34

but is what I want to do. What

22:37

do you all think about something that... I

22:40

think Josh is maybe saying this a little bit here,

22:42

but like I've had this experience

22:44

with myself where it's like sometimes my

22:46

brain just doesn't jive with what I'm

22:48

trying to learn. That is a thing.

22:52

And maybe never will. There's something about coming

22:55

to peace with that and coming to

22:57

terms with that. Like just being like

23:00

that's okay. There are a hundred

23:03

other things that my brain does jive

23:05

with. You know, like what do

23:08

we do with that? I don't know. This

23:11

reminds me of something that a teacher

23:13

actually I have said to me recently.

23:16

She said that I was the type of person that

23:18

always ate their vegetables first. Because

23:20

I put

23:23

the unpleasant thing first and sometimes the unpleasant

23:25

thing is learning something new. So I prioritize

23:28

that first so that I can have the

23:30

things that I enjoy later on and I'm

23:32

kind of working towards something. And it feels

23:34

like I'm tricking my brain in a way.

23:37

But dealing with things that

23:39

I just can't get. And

23:42

sometimes they are things that will make or break.

23:44

Right. It's like you have to learn this in

23:46

order to get to that next level, that next

23:48

class. It's really a

23:50

matter of velocity, of

23:52

trying a lot of different things.

23:54

Thinking kind of outside the box

23:56

and then asking for help. I

24:00

know a lot of us have a

24:02

struggle with that but when you're talking

24:04

about learning something new, it

24:06

can only be to your benefit to

24:08

ask for help and to ask other

24:11

people's opinions and their thoughts

24:13

and their experiences because learning

24:15

should be collaborative. I think it's

24:18

actually should be and it's kind of

24:20

better that way for everyone if it's

24:23

a collaborative experience because that's

24:25

how you get away from all of that avoidance. It's how

24:27

you get away from all of that stinking

24:29

thinking and all of the negative

24:32

emotions that come with trying to

24:34

learn something and then failing at

24:36

it or just not being able

24:38

to get it right away. Insomnia

24:40

said it in the beginning. That is

24:42

the best way you are motivated by

24:45

the people around you. You learn from

24:47

the people around you and

24:49

I wonder why we know that

24:52

it's better to ask

24:55

for help instead of struggling silence

24:58

but why are there those moments

25:00

where we're struggling and

25:02

we can't see our way to asking

25:05

people for help? What

25:08

is that? If

25:10

someone were to ask us for help,

25:12

we would drop everything we were doing

25:14

to help them. We have no problem

25:17

giving the assistance and helping

25:19

people along but when

25:21

it comes time to ask for that

25:24

help, why do

25:26

we struggle? I think it

25:28

goes back to what Josh was saying before

25:30

the break that everyone just assumes that everyone

25:32

else knows everything and

25:34

they have all the gifts and all the

25:36

parts and in reality a lot

25:39

of us are walking around with like tool

25:41

sets that we don't have all

25:43

the parts. We don't have all the tools. We

25:45

don't have everything that we need to be kind

25:48

of self-contained geniuses. We have to collaborate.

25:50

We have to communicate and share our

25:52

experiences and that's the only way forward

25:55

in a lot of these cases. Getting

25:58

back to some of the self-award

26:00

awareness and introspection.

26:03

I think it's that realizing the things that

26:05

our brain jives with and the things that

26:08

our brain doesn't. And then, honestly,

26:10

kind of lowering the bar a little bit

26:12

on the things that my brain just doesn't

26:14

jive with. Come to peace with it. Just

26:16

come to peace with it, and it's okay.

26:18

I remember in undergrad, when I

26:20

was in college, I was an

26:22

English major. And I was

26:24

really damn good at English. I was

26:27

like, Acing everything. I was like, A's,

26:29

A's, A's, A's. There you go. My

26:31

minor was political science, and

26:33

I sucked at it. And it was

26:36

really hard. You know? Yeah,

26:38

it was hard. It was really hard. My grades were lower.

26:40

I had to work so hard in

26:42

those classes, because it did not come

26:44

naturally. At the

26:46

same time, I really wanted to do

26:48

it. I just had

26:50

to lower my expectations a

26:53

little bit in those classes, you know?

26:55

And just be okay with it. And it's

26:58

okay. That's powerful. You would not be

27:00

winning those categories on Jeopardy, is

27:02

what you were saying. Yeah, I'm not. And you were

27:04

fine with that. And that's okay. You know, that's okay.

27:07

I also don't want us to

27:09

think that every learning experience is

27:11

sort of like drudgery, or it's,

27:13

you know, like. It is not.

27:15

There are those moments that I

27:17

also love that are like, oh,

27:19

my brain is jiving with this.

27:21

Magical. It is magical.

27:23

I have lost seven

27:26

hours studying. I

27:30

didn't even know that time passed at all. You

27:32

know, I just looked up. Isn't it beautiful? Yeah,

27:34

it's like really wonderful, you know? And like, it's

27:37

setting the right expectations for

27:39

yourself in what

27:42

you're currently doing. I love that. Indeed.

27:44

And not being so hard on yourself also.

27:47

Okay. Let's

27:49

get back to Josh, because he's a maintainer,

27:51

right? You've talked about maintainers on the show.

27:54

He often finds himself writing educational

27:56

materials for open source projects that

27:58

he works with. It's materials

28:01

around TypeScript, which is a programming language

28:03

that adds syntax on top of JavaScript.

28:06

I was fascinated with how Josh's

28:08

methods of teaching matched his methods

28:11

of learning new things. I

28:13

figure out what the start is, and I figure out what the

28:15

end is, or at the very least what the ideals of those

28:17

are. That's the user empathy you have to

28:20

come in with to understand what is the really common

28:22

need. What can you or can you

28:24

not assume people know? Because a lot of people just

28:26

assume learners know the latest and greatest framework. That is

28:29

not a good idea. You

28:31

have to teach the foundations of what the thing is,

28:33

the language, the type system, how to use it, the

28:35

basic common features. And from there,

28:38

you continue splitting down what are those features,

28:40

how do you explain that which ones rely

28:42

on others until you have this beautiful topological

28:44

sort, as they say, of what are the

28:46

content topics, and how do you

28:48

get started learning the type of feature that you have.

28:53

That's interesting. I

28:55

like the way that he kind of

28:58

broke it down again. These

29:00

are all the things. We just talked

29:02

about it, this syllabus. You

29:04

want this visual representation

29:06

of, well, how am

29:09

I going to present this information? Or how

29:11

am I going to learn this information? And

29:13

again, when it's broken down into these very

29:16

manageable parts, it

29:19

makes sense because you're working toward this

29:22

end goal where you have this

29:24

understanding of X. And in

29:26

his case, it's TypeScript. I

29:29

think this method of kind of

29:31

breaking it down into these

29:34

manageable parts, I don't

29:36

want to say it's the key, but it's definitely

29:38

one of the keys. And

29:40

I also want to add that people

29:43

learn through different modalities, right?

29:46

If you're reading or watching this

29:48

video and some things

29:50

in it aren't jiving,

29:52

they're not clicking, we

29:55

should be comfortable enough to say, you know

29:57

what, this isn't working here. Let

30:00

me go try to find another resource to kind

30:02

of fill in these gaps, you

30:04

know, and You

30:06

what you're doing is you're building your tool

30:09

set Maybe

30:11

that syllabus is coming from a

30:13

myriad of different resources

30:15

You're breaking it down but

30:17

again some people don't explain things the

30:20

way that you can grasp them or You

30:22

see something and it doesn't make sense to you. So

30:25

you have to see it another way I

30:27

think being flexible as well

30:29

is a great way. So I like

30:31

his method but also being flexible with

30:33

that. I Want

30:36

to talk about the elephant in the room

30:39

many people are discussing AI Talking

30:42

about how affect the way we

30:44

work we do work It's

30:47

already affecting the way we learn in

30:50

the form of AI tools and platforms. Oh,

30:52

yeah Some people are hesitant about

30:54

this. I don't blame them Famya

30:57

has a different perspective. So

31:00

the situation is very much like

31:02

in the beginning when calculators were

31:04

introduced The

31:08

jobs which involve, you

31:10

know a bit of mathematics calculation

31:12

like in banks or Anywhere

31:15

where you have to do calculation

31:17

and stuff all those jobs will

31:19

be gone But we know the

31:22

reality the humans are using calculators

31:24

to improve Productivity to save time

31:26

all the jobs are there. It's

31:29

just that we humans are Using

31:31

those tools to do our job Okay,

31:34

I would never compare a

31:36

calculator to AI But

31:39

I get what she's saying, yeah, I would in this case

31:42

yeah because The

31:44

fear that a lot of people have

31:46

surrounding AI yes, there is a good

31:49

side its ability to help us learn

31:51

things Faster, but

31:53

there's always this undercurrent

31:55

because the data is

31:58

usually produced by humans the

32:00

models are usually built by

32:02

humans. Humans are flawed and biased,

32:05

and they have a lot

32:07

of shortcomings. And that

32:09

information definitely makes its

32:11

way down into what is

32:14

being read or gathered from the end

32:16

user. So we have to be very

32:18

careful. I love the fact that AI

32:20

is just all the wave right now.

32:23

We have light speed. We have lots of

32:25

codices. We have

32:27

GitHub pod. We have all these things. They

32:30

are amazing. But, buyer

32:33

beware, there's always

32:36

something that we need to concern ourselves with.

32:38

I think understanding the tool is

32:41

important. Trust but

32:43

verify. Always. It's

32:45

a tool, right? A tool and a

32:47

tool is not infallible. So I feel

32:49

like if people want to

32:51

use AI, especially if they're using AI in

32:54

the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of

32:56

new skills, I think that's

32:58

awesome. More power to them. I do

33:01

want people to think about it as an extension of

33:03

themselves. Because in a lot of ways, AI is an

33:05

extension of us. And

33:07

therefore, still exposed and

33:09

vulnerable to the same biases

33:11

and the same types of flaws that we

33:13

have as humans. You're absolutely right, Angela. Yeah,

33:16

and I would say the same thing

33:18

for textbooks and lectures and videos and

33:21

everything else. We

33:23

have to be critical of the source material. I

33:26

trust my calculator though. I do trust

33:28

my calculator. It

33:30

has never steered me wrong, not

33:33

once. It's whether or

33:35

not I'm fat fingering the keys. That's like the

33:37

real problem. Well, that's different. There is human error.

33:39

That's user error. Yeah,

33:41

can't blame the calculator for that.

33:43

That's true. I

33:48

asked both of our guests for some parting

33:50

words of advice. For people who want to

33:52

level up their skill set or they want

33:54

to shift to something new or

33:56

just to keep up with the changes that are

33:59

happening. It's easy to get scared,

34:01

frustrated, or overwhelmed, because

34:03

we're all combing forums and

34:06

chat channels about what new skill

34:08

we should pick up. I

34:11

wanted to know what Josh thought about this. We've

34:13

talked about education and continuing, you

34:16

know, learning more. We've

34:18

talked about different ways of figuring out

34:20

what to do, but we should definitely

34:22

also mention, sometimes the answer is nothing.

34:24

Sometimes the answer is you are completely

34:26

satisfied while saturated with information and your

34:28

life does not have the bad way

34:30

to learn something new. And everyone's young

34:32

to you to go learn whatever, react

34:34

or tailwind or cooking or go volunteer.

34:37

It's totally fine to take some time

34:39

for yourself. You don't want to burn

34:41

yourself down. Bless

34:43

us, man. Preach, Josh. Preach.

34:46

Yes. We don't have

34:48

to be doing all the things. This

34:51

hustle culture has us thinking that

34:53

we need to fill every moment

34:56

of every day with something that

34:58

either makes us money or could

35:00

possibly make us money or enriches

35:03

us or whatever.

35:06

Thank you, Josh, for saying

35:08

what you said because there's

35:10

a lot going on in our lives. We

35:13

should be able to take a pause and not

35:16

fill every free moment with something.

35:19

Yeah, definitely. Just be. Yeah,

35:21

being still is a valid answer

35:24

all the time, in my opinion. And

35:26

I'm happy that Josh gave us permission to do

35:28

that. Indeed. Samya

35:31

says balancing continuing education with

35:33

daily life is hard work, but

35:36

it's work that pays off. There

35:38

will be nights you will be doing

35:40

putting questions the whole night. There

35:43

will be days when your friends will be going

35:45

and it is night at

35:47

the sex lab. So you will need to set in

35:49

place. You might feel like

35:51

giving up and feeling from heart.

35:54

A coding question from lead code

35:56

or while preparing a good real

35:59

world project. But trust me, Amen. We

36:03

all have been there. So start

36:05

believing in your skills, walk on

36:07

yourself, and you will indeed

36:10

get there. We

36:13

have to find that balance. Not every

36:16

moment, minute, or year of our lives

36:19

are we on this quest. We're

36:21

not always on this quest, because

36:23

sometimes we find our

36:25

careers and we've done the hustle

36:27

and we've sacrificed and we've

36:30

learned something to achieve said goal.

36:32

Yep. It's okay to

36:34

enjoy it once you got there, but

36:37

never become complacent, because again,

36:39

if you're in technology, the

36:42

next thing is coming. Constantly. The

36:44

next version is coming. The next

36:46

something is coming. So we

36:48

should have those down times, but when it's

36:50

time to pick up and hustle, we're

36:53

okay with making that sacrifice,

36:55

because you gotta get where you're going. Right,

36:58

it's the unrequited requirement. That's

37:00

right, that's right. I like it. I

37:07

think of learning as kind

37:09

of like choosing one's own adventure, like those

37:11

books back in the day. But

37:14

I understand that sometimes it can be

37:17

demoralizing. It can be exhausting.

37:20

What's most important is making

37:22

choices authentically. It's not

37:25

being carried away with whatever's new

37:27

or buzzwordy or in the news

37:29

a lot. Remembering

37:31

that it takes time to learn something

37:34

new and a lot of patience. Being

37:36

forgiving to yourself for not knowing everything

37:38

right away and being patient

37:40

with oneself is key. That

37:42

way we can take care of ourselves

37:45

and let our curiosity be our guide.

37:48

What we choose to learn does say

37:50

something about us, but it's never the

37:52

last word of who we are or

37:55

who we can become. And that's on

37:57

everything. You

37:59

nailed it. Thank you for

38:01

that. Well, this was such

38:04

an interesting episode. Education,

38:07

continuing education, always

38:09

learning. We

38:11

would love to hear what our listeners are

38:13

thinking about this. What stood out to you?

38:15

What jogged with you? What did you say?

38:17

Oh, no, that's not how I do things.

38:20

We want to hear what you thought

38:22

about this episode. Hit

38:24

us up on social media at

38:26

Red Hat using the hashtag Compiler

38:28

Podcast. Tell us what you

38:30

think. This was a great discussion and

38:32

I hope you enjoyed it as well. And

38:38

that's another for this episode of

38:41

Compiler. Today's episode

38:43

is produced by Kim Wong and

38:45

Caroline Craighead. A big

38:47

thank you to our guests, Samya

38:49

Singh and Josh Koehn. We

38:52

can all learn a little bit from

38:54

Victoria Lawton. Our

38:57

audio engineer is Christian Proho. Special

38:59

thanks to Sean Cole. Our

39:01

theme song was composed by Mary Ann

39:03

Cheddar. Our audio team

39:06

includes Lee Day, Stephanie

39:08

Wonderlich, Mike Esser, Nick

39:10

Burns, Erin Williamson, Karen

39:12

King, Jared Oates, Rachel

39:15

Bertel, Devin Pope, Mike

39:17

Compton, Ocean Matthews, Paige Johnson,

39:20

Alex Trebusy and Mira Cyril.

39:22

If you like today's episode, please follow

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and share it with someone you know. It

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really does help us out. Thank

39:32

you so much for listening. Until next

39:34

time. Bye. All right. See you next time.