Beat Hagenlocher

Some time ago, I taught a course on learning at a summer school.

Now, some of my students there are beginning their studies and one of them asked me how I would structure them if I were to go to university again. (He's just beginning his studies in physics.) So, I did. This is the advice I gave:

#0: Figure out what you want out of your life at university

There are probably three goals you have:

1. Deeply understanding what you're doing

2. Having good grades

3. Enjoying your life

Try to find a mixture that has as much overlap between them as possible, but if they compete, know how to choose, choose, and don't agonize about your choice(s).

#1: Deeply understanding stuff

• Find a good learning group, and learn with them. Do the task sheets together, and discuss stuff whenever things are unclear.

• Don't just rely on one source of learning materials. We're not used to thinking that abstractly, and getting more than one perspective on a topic is immensely helpful. Book, Recorded Lectures, Lecture Notes. Everything that helps, counts.

#2 Having good grades

• Practice. A lot. Get yourself a book with just practice tasks, especially for Analysis 1. Practice with them, from the beginning on. Try to get a hold on old exams, and practice with them, too.

• Make this a habit: Install a habit of practice testing yourself. Find a time of your day, for every day where you get out your Anki cards and test yourself on things. In the beginning, this can be small definitions, later this might be whole proofs.

#3 Enjoying your life

• Find some friends, both from your courses and outside of them. Try to have at least two people you can share your (emotional) struggles with (in a healthy way, ofc)

• Find groups of people you feel belonging to: As soon as you could bring a tray of baked goods with you, and it isn't awkward, they count.

And now for the hard part: Sometimes, you have to choose between the three, and actually pick priorities. Which one do you (or did you) pick?

I'm currently reading Grokking Simplicity by Eric Normand.

And I'm.. not blown away by how much I enjoy reading it.

For really capturing my attention, the book moves to slow.

But that is a good thing. I'm no beginner anymore: I've been thinking about Functional Programming ever since I learned Haskell in 2018, learned a bunch of functional programming languages, and worked in several larger codebases. So it's probably time I start to feel what it's like to be an expert. To be perfectly tuned for me, the book would have to move faster.

But it doesn't.

So far, Grokking Simplicity is just great.

It's well written and really avoids jargon. On top of that, Eric Normand decided to reimplement functional programming's features in JavaScript. This has two benefits: People know JS, or are at least used to its C-like syntax, and it enables Eric to build them from the ground up.

I In every chapter so far, it either changed my thinking or gave me new language/examples/mental models to talk and think about the issue(s) it describes.

That's what I like about a book. So recommended.

From 2018 to 2023, I really struggled with Neck Pain.

About every other week, I would wake up in the morning, turn my head a little, and immediately feel my muscles tighten. And then I didn't even need to bother anymore: Even just trying to turn my head would be really painful. The only two things that would help were: Blackrolling extensively (1), and sitting perfectly upright for long periods, with only observing my breath (2).

In the summer of 2021, everything changed.

I decided to consistently do something against it—and not only treat the symptoms. And as with most of the pain from strained muscles, it came down to three things:

1. Reducing the stressors

2. Relieving the muscles

3. Strenghtening the muscles (and/or their antagonists)

I tackled my two biggest stressors (1): Since then, I've been sleeping on my back, and whenever I write by hand, I'm changing positions frequently.

That alone greatly reduced the effect my neck pain had on my life.

(2) is something I did troughout, via blackrolling—but what I still didn't do for a long time was actually strengthening them (3). That is something I've been doing for the last one and a half years only: And since about a year, I really feel the effect of it.

Now, I don't even remember when the last time was I woke up with a pain like that.

It's certainly been more than a few months—my 2021-self would be astonished.

A few weeks ago, I realized something: Programming makes your thinking accurate.

I was showing friends of mine what Software Engineering in a larger project could look like. They were newbies—they knew little about bash, weren't used to Build Systems, and didn't have much Linux experience. I let them try to set things up with a guide. The guide didn't provide them with all the information, and they got errors.

But when I asked them about what they did so far, they surprised me.

They just casually answered what they 'tried to do'.

When pressing them about what exactly they did, they had a hard time grasping the question. I asked again what specific commands they typed in, and in which order—but they just stared back.

In their view, they'd already said what could be said.

And then I realized that I once felt that way, too.

I remember being confused that people wanted to understand what exactly I had typed in, and getting irritated when my answers weren't satisfactory to them.

I think this comes down to how we as humans interact with each other and with technology. Surprisingly often, we're able to get away with 'trying to do something', and the other side (be it tech or human) guessing our intention and doing the approximately correct thing.

Or at least it's not painful enough to change our behaviour.

Learning to program is just that: Many, many opportunities to make your thinking more accurate. With time, people that program just 'get it'. And then, someday, when they want to tell newbies to 'think more accurately', they have their own moment of realization:

I've been there, too.

Not that long ago, I was dismissive towards Merino T-Shirts:

• "Why would anybody spend 80€ plus for a T-Shirt?"

• "It has to be an accessoire for people who need to spend money to get themselves to go hiking."

Then, I realized something: Merino T-Shirts are more versatile than cotton ones, are five T-Shirts in one, and with that, a real alternative to normal clothing.

Way #1: You can wear them in many more environments.

Ever feared riding up that hill and then being cold afterwards?
They keep you warm even when they're wet.

Ever feared you'd smell too much after that?
They smell way less.

And now the big one:

Way #2: They are five T-Shirts in one

• They take up less space

• They reduce your choices of what to wear

• You don't need to wash that often, etc.

• They are cheaper: Assuming a normal T-Shirt costs 20€, a T-Shirt you can wear for 5 days straight but costs 80€ suddenly sounds like a good deal, doesn't it?

(What do you think about Merino T-Shirts? Is there anything I've missed?)

There are a lot of books about Human Nature.

And I've read a lot of them.

But the best book on book on Human Nature I've read is Humankind by Rutger Bregman.

For a few reasons:

• Reason #1: It profoundly changed how I view the world. I definitely didn't think that humans are inherently good before, but now I do.

• Reason #2: It tells great stories—I regularly find myself referencing and retelling them when discussing human nature with people:

  • What does really happen when high school kids strand on a barren island?

  • How much panic is there onboard when a plane is about to crash, and everyone knows it?

• Reason #3: It answers questions I didn't even consider before—for example:

  • Why do almost all domesticated animals look like adolescents when compared to their wild counterparts?

• Reason #4: It is just plain fun to read.

If you are at all interested in understanding Human Nature, I can't recommend this book enough. I routinely tell people if there's only one book they should read, this is it. It is that good.

(Did you read it? If so, do you agree? Is there another book you would recommend? Besides Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, of course?)

Do you want to get better at:

1. Thinking clearly

2. Communicating your thoughts

3. Improving your reasoning?

I want to, and I think Writing in Public might be the way to go.

Here's why:

1. Writing forces me to think.

2. Writing with an audience in mind forces me to make my thoughts concrete, explain context, and spot gaps.

3. Writing in public invites discussions, enables people to point out flaws—giving me the opportunity to improve my reasoning.

I recently signed up for Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole's cohort-based course, Ship 30 for 30.

Over the next 30 days, I plan on writing about (functional) programming, living a simple(r) life, and whatever comes to mind.

Join me on this adventure—and let me know if you have any questions along the way!
I'm excited to start sharing my thinking online.