" Watch how they have memorized all the shortcuts and quirks of their custom line-of-business apps. You'll discover a class of users who want power and control, not simplicity and ease-of-use."
Doesn't "quirks" already imply that it's non-optimal? Shouldn't we think of applications and user interfaces which don't make someone remembering all shortcuts a "professional"? As stated by others before, simplicity and ease of use aren't strongly correlated to power and control.
What you're saying is similar to what I am trying to do:
Take up projects which are 60% stuff you know how to do and 40% things you'd like to learn (the numbers are just made up, but you get the point). Even better, get paid for learning (e.g. competition with prizes or learning in a corporate environment)
"And I'm telling you, even then, convincing managers is not easier than convincing any other investor"
You should know your manager much better than you know your investor. If you know someone, you should be better equipped to share your vision with them. Then, three things can happen a) your vision is rejected because it has a flaw you did not see b) your vision is rejected because it does not match your manager's situation (you should put more effort in getting to know your manager's situation!) or c) your idea is accepted. Of course, (b) is really hard. Then again, most programmers I know don't evaluate their corporate structures and people as thoroughly as they evaluate code.
In consulting, it's usually not your employer that pushes you. It's your clients. In a startup, it's either your investors or your customer (hopefully). Either way, there's always forces that want you to execute instead of learn. There's no direct visible gain from you learning. It's like climate change. It's important, but noone in power cares.
I totally agree with your long term statement. And I do also agree with you on the fact that just learning without execution renders your learning useless.
The thing is, how do you juggle between these two extremes?
@imp notes below:
"I let my own ambitions determine which zone I'm in, and they last from a couple weeks to months."
The cycle seems to come naturally to him. For others like @Ixiaus it takes more conscious effort (I assume, since he quit his job to be able to learn the things which matter to him).
Part of it is that you need to find ways to justify learning things. It's really easy to learn things that have a direct impact on your job. You may be different, but I know programmers who won't even learn things that directly impact their jobs. And unless it will take a very significant chunk of time, it's usually pretty easy to make this kind of learning transparent to clients and managers. You might be surprised at how much you can learn just by spending the extra couple of hours learning to do something the "right way" rather than just sticking to what you know.
Of course, if that's something you're already doing, kudos. Now, if we're talking about things that don't apply to anything at all, your choices are either going to have to be:
1. Find a way to "sneak in" an hour or two a week if it doesn't interfere with your tasks.
2. Learn it on your own time.
If your management/clients aren't going to allow option 1, you may just have to decide whether you want to learn on your own time or if you want to find a job where you can spend a bit of time learning.
Are you doing anything to nurture these two extremes? Or do they just come naturally to you?
Your comment reminds me of a discussion I had with my cofounder long time ago (yes I have tried the startup path multiple times). We were discussing how this pattern of wildness, of strong desire to produce things follows an almost relaxing, reflecting period. The discussion arose while we were learning about the coding and refactoring cycle during the extreme programming days in Karlsruhe, Germany where I used to study.
No, not anything in particular. It's mostly natural because if I spend too much time in the "just work hard" extreme I get burned out eventually. I'm also too antsy to spend a lot of time in the learning extreme because I like to see concrete results eventually. Since I'm comfortable with my long-run track record of learning and producing, I never let myself feel guilty for doing either extreme.
The only other factor is time of year. I tend to learn during Christmas because when I was in college I used that time for reading and reflecting between semesters. I still get the urge to just sit and read and explore around that time of year.
I develop and design iOS apps.
Email: dinh@mocava.de | twitter: @vpdn
I'm currently working as a freelance iOS dev in a scrum team on moovel[1]. I'll be available for remote contract work starting june.
Samples:
[1] moovel (dev): http://www.daimler.com/technology-and-innovation/mobility-co...
[2] Converter app (dev & design), roughly 700k downloads: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/converter/id423521445?mt=8
[3] Timetracking App (design): http://d.pr/i/zGZW