andrewducker | (no subject)

I'm fed up with people demanding instant success. It's symptomatic of both modern culture and of youth (who don't understand why they can't be successful now.

There's a fantastic quote in an article I just read on why books that claim you can "Learn Java in 7 days" are nonsense.

Researchers (Hayes, Bloom) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene, appearing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967. Samuel Johnson thought it took longer than ten years: "Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." And Chaucer complained "the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."

Most 'natural talent' is obsession mixed with lots of hard work. Sure, you need to have a little basic talent in the first place. But without honing it for years, you'll never be more than a dabbler.