Joel Clermont (00:00):
Welcome to No Compromises, a peek into the mind of two old web devs who have seen some things. This is Joel.

Aaron Saray (00:08):
And this is Aaron.
I miss when you used to start off here saying, "So Aaron,"

Joel Clermont (00:18):
So Aaron, we've talked about this on the podcast before, different ways to acquire a skill or to kind of stay current. But I thought today an interesting question would be just about the different styles or methods of learning if you want to call it that. Like, what do you do when you want to learn something and does it matter? Like, I need to learn this because I'm being paid to do this or I need to learn this because I'm just curious and I want to expand my horizons. I'll start, I can talk about how I to learn. I tend to be more hands-on. I find that if I'm reading a book, for example, I really should be... We're talking about learning technology too. Obviously, this would change depending on the subject matter.
But I like to be learning that sitting at the keyboard because I take more of kind of an active role in learning. Which is if somebody says something in a book I don't just be like, "Mm-hmm, that's right." I'm like, "Really?" or, "Why?" or, "What's behind that?" Sometimes a statement will be made or a code sample will be presented and I like to actually try it out and experiment like, "Well, what if we didn't put that one thing in there? Would it still work the same way?" or, "Why is this there?" So for me, hands-on. Sitting on the couch reading a tech book it's going to go in one ear and out the other, I kind of have a bad memory to begin with. Or just watching a video course for hours on end without actually trying to do anything. It's no good for me, I'm not going to come away from that feeling any better about what I know.

Aaron Saray (01:58):
Well, I mean to play a little devil's advocate here. I think you're giving examples of things that aren't how those learners would do it though. A visual course, someone probably won't watch hours on end. They'll watch half an hour to an hour and then go and do something else. There's a difference between saying you just watch it for a long time or you watch it in small segments and as you go and do something else unrelated it synthesizes in your brain.

Joel Clermont (02:23):
Oh, you're saying I watch 30 minutes and then I go vacuum the living room. I'm not going to sit down at the computer and try to use it. But yeah, I could see that would be maybe a step in between but I still feel like if I don't actually try to do something with the knowledge, the recently acquired knowledge, it just doesn't stick in my brain, doesn't connect to what I already know in a way if I don't do that.

Aaron Saray (02:51):
I follow what you're saying. That's why I'm sticking up for the other learners because there's different learner types. That's what you're kind of talking about here. For example, I remember we had this conversation when we were writing our validation book is I just wanted to write the book and you wanted to add on exercises.

Joel Clermont (03:08):
I do remember that conversation.

Aaron Saray (03:10):
I was like, "I don't want to do exercises because it reminded me of being in school." When I was in school I was probably a little bothersome to teachers but the way I learn is I'm a listener or a watcher. So I would stare at the teachers and just listen when they're lecturing stuff. And when they were done, for me there was no amount of exercises that were going to help me because I was like, "Why are you making me do a contrived sort of thing? I don't contrived work." "It's going to help you remember." I'm like, "No, the more you push me to do something I don't want to do, the less I'm going to remember of the thing I thought I just learned."

Joel Clermont (03:47):
Go ahead because I have a follow up question but.

Aaron Saray (03:50):
I mean, again there's all different layers and levels to this stuff. Meaning are you learning something to know about it or to implement it? There's a difference there because I'll learn about a lot of things to know about it and have enough information to make smart decisions in the future on what I need to look at again. Versus if there's something I need to learn to implement it, well then I'm probably learning about it and then applying it right away. But I don't necessarily apply stuff or sit in front of the keyboard and do fake exercises while I'm learning something that I don't need to apply immediately. I'd rather just apply it immediately.

Joel Clermont (04:24):
That makes sense to me. So if you're just learning, let's take a random example, like the Rust programming language, you have no plans to use it in work but you're kind of curious. Like, people are talking about it, what's the big deal? That's one level of learning just curiosity driven. Versus, "Well, I need to implement some geolocation logic tomorrow and I don't know how to do that the right way, so I really need to learn that right now." Right?

Aaron Saray (04:50):
Yeah.

Joel Clermont (04:50):
That's what you're saying. I would agree with that, the more casual learning curiosity-driven. Yeah, I probably I'm not sitting there trying to exercise it and play with it. But so the question I had as you were talking about the example in school, where you're just staring at the teacher? I'm kind of curious, what mentally is going on in your mind? Are you literally just kind of passively listening or are you highlighting in your mind key points and somehow tucking that away somewhere? Or is there a process? I don't know if that's even possible to try to explain how you think about something.

Aaron Saray (05:28):
Yeah. I'm not claiming my way as the better way because I don't think it is. I mean, if you look at all the science out there, everyone says the way I do stuff is wrong. Which, "Okay, cool. It works for me."

Joel Clermont (05:41):
So you're objectively wrong is what you're saying?

Aaron Saray (05:43):
Yeah. And I'm totally fine with that because it does work for me I think. But when we talk about taking notes or something too, like highlighting the things that... Notes are good and as I get older I'm finding them more valuable. But there's a different type of note, there's two different notes. There's one for those main points, like reinforcing those main points and there's one for remembering details. And there's kind of a difference between those, subtle but a big difference is... And I will start to forget the main detail if I'm taking notes on the main detail. But if I hear something that's super weird and very niche I'll write that down because I'm like, "I didn't know that, I can't even remember it as they're saying it. So I better write it down because I'll never remember it in real-time, but at least I'll have it on my paper."

Joel Clermont (06:29):
And I've seen that too with listening to a lecture or something. If you're trying to literally record the words they're saying you're not going to actually hear anything that's happening. You're just so busy trying to frantically write everything down or type it or whatever you're doing. But, no, and I guess when I kind of share my approach to learning, I'm not even saying it's the one true way either. But it is curious to me, I wonder if some of it has to do with memory. Because I joke about it, but I do forget things that-

Aaron Saray (06:59):
Yeah, I know. I've noticed.

Joel Clermont (07:02):
But you know what I'm saying? I had a friend, he could read a novel and I read it the year before and he'd be asking me all these details about characters. I'm like, "I have no idea, I can't remember."

Aaron Saray (07:14):
That was a year ago.

Joel Clermont (07:15):
Yeah, but that's my point, is like some people I feel, I don't know if it's the way their brain works or what, but they just can really latch on to something and remember it in more detail than I feel like I can. I guess I'm saying I need more help, maybe that's why I've adopted a particular learning style.

Aaron Saray (07:34):
Well, I'm just going to double back on one thing. I think you have to be careful not to be guilty of looking at other learning styles and looking at their extreme versions. Again, when you talk about taking notes on the main point, right away you went to, "Well, if you're trying to write down everything that they say," I'm like, "That's not what I said." I said just some notes on the main points. I can't even do that because that just distracts me too much. I'd rather just pay attention to the thing. Now, again, there's pros and cons to all of this. But you do have something right when you talk about the different types of brains. Not everyone is the same and we can't try to pretend that we are.
For me, like I said, it's hard to explain what's going on in my mind. I had a girlfriend once that really challenged me and said, "What are you thinking about?" Which there's a whole set of jokes behind that. I told her, "Nothing," and she just couldn't comprehend I was thinking about nothing. It's the same sort of thing when you said, "Well, what are you doing with your brain?" I don't know specifically except that I'm extremely there in the moment. I'm listening and I don't think I'm doing anything else but listening and for my brain that works. I've seen other people that have to write stuff down and that's their way. They have to write it down or they'll never remember it. There's people that can read, there's people that can listen, there's people that have to do hands-on stuff. I think that's the basic of three, right? The hands-on, the listener, and the reader. And each one is just a little bit different and has their own set of skill sets and it's almost... It just feels impossible to understand the other sets to me.

Joel Clermont (09:15):
You're probably right. One other area that we haven't touched on yet is the idea of actually getting live help from another person. Coaching, this is something we've done for other developers and teams. And it's something I've used in different areas of business and things like that. What's your approach to that? Because sometimes whether it's a tactical thing, like I'm working in a team and I'm kind of stuck on a problem. Or a larger thing like, "I want to get better at this and I'm just not doing it on my own." Do you have an approach in mind for when to ask for help and when to maybe consider coaching or some more hands-on help from somebody?

Aaron Saray (09:54):
Yeah, I think when you go down the road of working and learning on something, and no matter what, after a while you can start, if you're really honest with yourself, you can tell when you're not doing it right or not learning better. Like when you constantly have to go back to a manual for something or everything you write... I think great programmers have a level of like, "Oh, that could have been better," when they finish it but they can move on. Whereas another level is, "I don't know why that's okay, I don't know why it's working." When you continually don't know why things, I think that's the time to reach out to the coaching.
But to extend on your question a little bit, I want to look at it from the opposite side too. One of the things that you need to understand if you're going to ask for coaching then is that you have to then decide and honor and trust that coach. Because that's one of the things that I do when I start coaching people is I kind of beat on them with knowledge until they kind of give up and then have trust. Because if you don't trust your coach you're not going to learn from them as much. Because sometimes things have to happen and you just have to not know why because you already don't know why to get you past that first hump so that the picture's clearer for you.

Joel Clermont (11:11):
Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I mean, you don't want to just blindly follow somebody but the reason you reached out to them as a coach in the first place is you already had some proof that they know what they're talking about. So once you're now paying them to help you or whatever the relationship is, don't be counterproductive and resist it. One of the other things too I've experienced this somewhat is when you're coaching somebody and there's an expectation that they're just magically going to get better.
It's like, "No, you still have to put in the work, you have to do the things I'm telling you to do." In a coaching arrangement generally, you meet periodically with somebody but then the time in between they have to do the work. I'm going for physical therapy right now, if I don't do any work in between those visits it's going to get better way slower. It's the same approach with coaching you still have to take ownership for it. You're being led and guided by somebody that's been there before so you'll get to the destination faster if you do the work.

Aaron Saray (12:16):
What do you think about peanut butter and banana sandwiches?

Joel Clermont (12:21):
It's not currently in my diet but the flavor combination seems appealing to me. I've probably had one in the past.

Aaron Saray (12:27):
It's pretty funny to me that if you think about some things that just make sense to you or you've kind of grown up with and other people have never worked with it all. A buddy of mine, I mentioned he is like, "Oh, I got some bananas and whatever." I was like, "Oh, you should make peanut butter and banana sandwich." And he goes, "What?" And I thought he was messing with me so I was like, "You know, peanut butter and banana sandwich." He was like, "And then what?" I'm like, "Eat it." So he's like, "I never had a peanut butter and banana sandwich." I'm like, "Okay, you're going to have to buy that on the way home."

Joel Clermont (13:07):
Go fill that void in your life.

Aaron Saray (13:08):
Yeah, I guess he did. And it was three or four days later, it was 10:15 at night and I get a text message from him just out of the blue saying, "Man, this was amazing."

Joel Clermont (13:19):
Nice.

Aaron Saray (13:20):
And I'm looking at that going... But at that time I'm like, "What is he talking about?" Like, "Well, what did you send me at 10 in..." I'm like, "Did he text the wrong person?"

Joel Clermont (13:30):
Did you send this to the right person? Yeah.

Aaron Saray (13:31):
Yeah, but peanut butter and banana. So I guess that was my good deeds for the week is to point out on our podcast too that if you haven't ever had a peanut butter and banana sandwich... that is banana with peanut butter on bread, preferably toast because then the peanut butter kind of melts a little bit too depending on what you have. You can definitely-

Joel Clermont (13:58):
Can I just point something out?

Aaron Saray (13:58):
Yeah.

Joel Clermont (13:58):
Because if you've never heard of this concept. You don't put a whole banana, just the sideways on the sandwich, right?

Aaron Saray (14:06):
Oh, yeah.

Joel Clermont (14:06):
You cut it up into little disks and lay it on the sandwich.

Aaron Saray (14:09):
No, no, no. What? Into little disks?

Joel Clermont (14:11):
You put it on a hotdog bun and it's just the whole banana in there?

Aaron Saray (14:13):
No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't cut it into little disks. You cut it in half and then you cut it lengthwise so you can put the four pieces straight across. Otherwise, if you put the little disc you have little spots in between where there's no banana. But if you cut down in half and then you cut them in lengthwise, then they're all kind of lined up, like spooned to banana.

Joel Clermont (14:34):
Are you telling me my parents did it wrong?

Aaron Saray (14:36):
I saw someone do that once and I thought they were messing with me.

Joel Clermont (14:40):
No.

Aaron Saray (14:41):
Who disks their banana?

Joel Clermont (14:43):
Well, it's an easier cutting operation especially if your banana's super curvy to evenly get that. But I can't argue with the geometry of your solution, it's certainly there's more surface area of banana if you do it your way.

Aaron Saray (15:02):
Everyone has to do it from time to time and so do we. We have to ask you to share our podcast,

Joel Clermont (15:08):
Go to show.nocompromises.io and there's probably a link you can click there or something to share it.