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The Definitive List of Things I Don't Know

Niko Heikkilä on July 16, 2019

Lately, I've been pondering about my work and where I want to head with it. Thus, it's only logical to understand what I need to learn to get there...
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evanoman profile image
Evan Oman

Thank you for the post!

While you covered this with your last bullet point, I think one of the biggest hurdles for any type of progress is that most of the things you don't know, you don't know that you don't know. Just like the old Rumsfeld quote, the unknown unknowns are the hardest to address. I see this every time I try something knew, it opens a cascade of new topics and issues that I had never even considered.

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Niko Heikkilä

True. While realizing the limits of one's knowledge one must not resort to negative outcomes such as impostor syndrome or Dunning-Kruger effect but embrace the possibility of expanding the knowledge. There's a lot to learn for all of us here.

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Rocky Kev

This really hit close to home for me. Thank you. I was looking back at my experience over the years, and I chatted with this group of devs who were all familiar with Vue, Gatsby, GraphQL, etc. Made me feel insecure. (But then excited about what I don't know!)

  • Remembering what I worked on more than a week ago
    My old boss reached out to me, asking for FREE work on a project I did a month ago. I told them it will take me 10 hours of paid work just to remember what I was doing. They got really upset.

  • Being an IT support.
    I get dizzy talking to the IT guys when they geek out about servers.

  • Hardware.
    My coworkers keep coming up to me, asking me to recommend a laptop to buy. My answer -- a Chromebook. Because all I do is see them on Youtube anyways.

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Niko Heikkilä

Well, had I included all the Javascript frameworks I don't know here this list would have grown to have hundreds or maybe thousands of entries.

My old boss reached out to me, asking for FREE work on a project I did a month ago. I told them it will take me 10 hours of paid work just to remember what I was doing. They got really upset.

Wow... I would have hung up the call right after them stating the work should be done without any compensation.

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Adam Crockett 🌀 • Edited

I know all about nuclear fusion 💥.. And that's why it's good to be honest.

Okay on to seriousness, there is nothing on this list that is concerning. Some of it you will never improve on because nobody does, some of it is not so important. I'd say your right on track!

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Charles Landau

So much of my anxiety is summed up in these four bullets

  • Avoiding bugs. We all create them...
  • Naming variables, functions, classes, and other concrete parts of the application...
  • Updating documentation as I code. The software documentation by definition is always outdated, anyway...
  • Doing Test-Driven Development (TDD). On many occasions, I have to play around with my vision and write some boilerplate code before being able to figure out what kind of tests I need...

Reading you name them and own them makes me re-evaluate how I guilt myself about this stuff.

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Niko Heikkilä • Edited

Admitting one's lack of knowledge is a step towards right direction. However, it must be complemented with desire to pursue new knowledge to fill the gaps.

...and sometimes even that is not enough to achieve the goals. Keep calm and carry on, though!

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Amin Al-Ali Al-Darwish

Thanks for the post
...
But ...
...
Only if the targeted people would read this...

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Niko Heikkilä • Edited

Do share this post to relevant people then. 🔥

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Amin Al-Ali Al-Darwish • Edited

If only it wouldn't be considered such an offense where I live...
But I guess we have to, at the expense of a client or two...

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Niko Heikkilä

Ah yes, not all the regions share the same level of free speech as I do. I believe that in countries endorsing a culture of hard work over anything else you would get a bad reputation from criticizing your business' management - even from inside the company.

In my country, you can criticize freely but it's often discouraged by peers who feel uncomfortable when even thinking of strikes. For better or worse, we are a very loyal nation towards our employers.

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David Hölkeskamp

Very mindful, and well written post.

I think it is really important facing the thought that you can not do everything and are not good at everything - and it's totally fine!

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Stephen Smith

Yes this was great read! I have so many of the same thoughts. Very few have photographic memories, so why act like we all do. Use resources - ask questions. I found this post refreshing.

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Leodanis Pozo Ramos

Great post!

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Tettei Shahday-Annang

Your post has greatly relieved me. Thanks so much for this Niko... 💙

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Dana Ottaviani

You are awesome! I completely agree that some job requirements are quite extensive, which can deter some devs from even pressing the apply button.

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Luis Serrano 🇪🇺

Thanks for this post! Only by staying humble and realistic we can make sure we keep moving in the right direction. Nice read, my list of stuff I don't know is quite similar and probably bigger haha

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Evan Oman

Fair point, it was just the most famous example of the phrase I had heard.

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Evan Oman

BTW none of this was meant to make any political statement...

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Niko Heikkilä

Thanks! I admit this post was a bit more speechy compared to my usual style.