PeterI think a problem I have with the idea that you can teach yourself stuff in IT through personal, private study is that yeah, you can, but if you don't use it, you forget it. can I learn window functions in SQL? sure! and I can spend a couple weeks doing exercises and maybe even a project. but then when I move on to learning PySpark and BigQuery and asychio and whatever else, within a couple months I don't remember how to do window functions.
you don't learn something-- I mean **really** learn something-- until you are using it every day, over and over again, in some kind of professional capacity. like, who the fuck learned Kubernetes on their own?? no one. you did it in school maybe, but then you **really** learned it by working on real, existing systems with the oversight of people more knowledgeable than you.
so when I think about what to learn next, it's kind of like, why? I've had the experience over and over again of learning PostgreSQL or Docker or pandas, and I made real progress, but if someone asked me to do something with it today I'd have to start all over again because it's been so long since I was hands on.
MattChippytea@peter I suppose there’s something about having a distant familiarity with something so that if you encounter it you’re not starting from first principles. I have to remind myself of stuff I’ve done lots over the past 10 years, but maybe not so much over the last 8 months, when it comes up in a project.