Do you remember the last time you learnt something new? Do you remember that feeling inside, the initial excitement as you really started to get to grips with the subject, really began to understand it?

There comes a point in learning any new skill or subject when we shift from a journey of discovery to a place of recollection. This is classified as “expertise”, controversially quoted as taking 10,000 hours to achieve according to Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers.

Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness

Being an “expert”

I am Rob Huzzey, Web Developer for a leading Theme & Theatre provider based in Kent and I am lucky enough to have a career that involves constant learning due to the changes in the technology I use (here’s how I keep up).

Often, I find that it’s impossible to learn everything about a new framework (this recent article sums it up “The state of Javascript in 2015") so I will only learn enough required to get going. This is perfectly acceptable, and something experience over the years has taught me.

As developers, we often face situations where we need to use unfamiliar code. A question will arise during these moments. How much time should I invest in understanding the code that I’m about to use? A typical answer is learn enough to start coding; then explore that topic further when time permits. — Cho S. Kim

We should use our previous experience to help understand new topics, even if that experience is in another field of expertise. We should draw on previous knowledge to get us “up to speed” on a subject whilst keeping an open mind and not allow assumptions to get in the way of learning the subject at a deeper level when necessary.

The journey of discovery

How often have you told somebody “just do it like this”. Have you just limited their journey of discovery?

When we become “experts”, we are in danger of making assumptions based on our experience and stopping the exploration of possibilities because we “already know that” or “did that before”.