November 13, 2013 at 9:07 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Time for Learning
November 14, 2013 at 2:28 am
It depends if you have to use it at the time. Then the hours are split (unevenly) between learning as a task in of itself and learning whilst utilising to perform another task. Not all the time for the latter is learning then. Also if you can do solely, or at least primarily, just what you are learning for a reasonable amount of time (days or weeks not hours) then you will find it easier to retain the knowledge without all the context switching.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
November 14, 2013 at 5:35 am
The key to learning - regardless of subject - is really repetition and association. Time is mostly incidental. Everybody has different learning styles, but it all essentially boils down to either repeating something over and over - which could be just reading and re-reading, saying it out loud, or simple practice - or linking the new knowledge to existing knowledge. This doesn't even get into the difference between learning and retrieval.
Phrases like "some level of competence" or "an acceptable level" are pretty abstract to begin with, so I always chuckle a bit when hearing statements including them.
____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.
November 14, 2013 at 6:13 am
"Do you think you could learn something like Powershell in 20 hours?"
Yes! And I also got the book "Be a SQL Server DBA in 24 Hours" and now make six figures in salary after a week of experience...
😛
November 14, 2013 at 6:16 am
I suppose if I sat down and started learning how to become a brain surgeon (being a software developer), 20 or 30 hours of studying would get me as far as 2+2 is in math. Hardly competent enough to do anything as a surgeon. But, going through some new technology built on an existing one that I am very familiar with already (ie: familiar with .NET and C# and MVC and now attempting to learn WebAPI, or knowing MSTest unit testing framework and now attempting learn TSQLT) then 20 or 30 hours can really be productive.
Same would go for the PowerShell Challenge you speak of. If you've programmed in several different languages already then 20 or 30 hours of PowerShell studying can get you going on a pretty high scale. If you have never heard of "command line" and never seen a single line of code before in your life, 20/30 hours of studying PowerShell will definitely not qualify you as an expert.
November 14, 2013 at 6:36 am
It is claimed that it takes a dog 500 tries to learn a trick ... at 5 tries /hour that works out to 100 hours. Seems about right. 😉
On a related note, I would love to see 'truth in advertising' standards applied to those 'learn X in 8 days' (or for that matter 'lose X pounds in 2 weeks') type of claim. Generally a title like that will immediately make me question the quality of the book.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
November 14, 2013 at 6:42 am
I would not be able to learn anything in 2 hours a week. I would forget what I learned the prior week if I didn't use it. I have to spend considerable time using what I'm learning to be productive. I think 100 hours for a new skill is fine as long as that is pretty much continuous and split between the learning and the doing.
Tom
November 14, 2013 at 7:38 am
I'm currently teaching myself MDX for a BI project at work. I spent about 20 hours reading through the Practical MDX Queries book (which is very good by the way) and applying the lessons against my cube (not Adventure Works). At that point I felt I could do the basics but still had to reference the book frequently for some specifics.
I've probably spent 50 hours writing MDX queries now and am starting to feel comfortable with the language.
Based on my experience you can pick up enough to be minimally functional in 20 hours but definitely need more time to become competent.
November 14, 2013 at 8:20 am
I learn things by not being constrained by what I know. At the moment, I have never used Powershell. If I needed something done and I thought Powershell was the right answer, I'd just build it and learn as I go. You don't need to be an expert, you just need to build good (not perfect, but not clunky ;-)) solutions.
When SQL 2005 came out, we had a project to convert a 2000 db to 2005. There were a bunch of DTS packages and I estimated 40 hours to convert them to SSIS, then I just figured it out on the fly. I didn't use configurations for dev, test, and prod connections, which is a standard that has been introduced since then. Our SSIS development has changed a bit since then, but they worked.
November 14, 2013 at 9:04 am
Over the past few months, I've been prepping for SQL Server 2012 Administration exam 70-462. I have experience performing admin tasks in the development and QA environment, and even a short stint as a production DBA many years back. Indexing, performance optimization, and role based security are just as much a part of what I do as a database developer as writing T-SQL. However, there was a lot of new material, things like installation options, change data capture and various disaster recovery features, that was new to me. It really helps to have something like a certification to use as a target for study and a good study guide that lays out the material in a comprehensive and structured way.
As a side, I was reading an article once that most medical operations (not brain or heart surgery but more routine out-patient procedures) could actually be performed by someone wihout only a few hundred hours training. Understand that they would only know the step-by-step technicals of performing that *one* specific procedure, and they would need a real medical doctor, anesthesiologist, and fully equipped facility on hand to back them up. This would basically be Henry Ford meets healthcare.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
November 14, 2013 at 9:27 am
I read the brief text describing the TED talk video on the video webpage, and paid careful attetion to the statement about 20 hours essentially equates to 45 minutes a day for a month. Rounding it to 1 hour for 30 days gives you 30 hours. If I stuck to something for 30 consecutive days (45mins to 1 hour), I think I'd have a good grasp of the material -- not an expert, but a useful foundation. I think I'd finally conquer how to interpret execution plans skillfully, master Profiler and server side traces, juggle a dozens of variables in SSIS... and so on. I wouldn't be attempting to learn all of these things at once, but choosing a topic and focusing my efforts on that singular subject.
Sean McCown (midnightdba.com), who happens to be a Powershell evangelist, wrote a really terrific article called "Nothing Beats Practice" (http://www.midnightdba.com/DBARant/?p=912. In the article he refers to "doing your 20s", which is all about repetition -- e.g., to learn how to perform backup/restore commands, repeat the process 20 times, everyday, for two weeks. By the end of two weeks, you'll likely remember the commands without thinking about them.
A researcher/author named Dr. John Medina studies the brain. One of his key principles is "Repeat to remember". To get something out of short term memory and into long term memory, repeat, repeat, repeat.
So, whether you spend 20 hours or 10,000 hours learning something, one of the key actions to be taken is repetition. Of course, physical performance can have its limitations -- for example, people who are of average height or less (i.e., less than 6ft) will probably never be able to slam-dunk a basketball into a regulation-height basketball rim --not even after 10,000 hours of practice. Barring these types of physical limitations, I still think that many, many subjects can be learned in a fairly short amount of time when the effort is diligent, purposeful, and frequently practiced -- along with enough sleep to have a brain capable of functioning for another day....
November 14, 2013 at 9:59 am
The problem is not all sets of x hours of time are the same. If you can only spend five minutes at a time studying it is going to take a lot longer than 20 hours all together to really learn something in my experience.
If however I can spend four uninterrupted hours each day for a work week studying something I can learn quite a lot in 20 hours.
November 14, 2013 at 10:01 am
jay-h (11/14/2013)
It is claimed that it takes a dog 500 tries to learn a trick ... at 5 tries /hour that works out to 100 hours. Seems about right. 😉
Horses learn in 2-3 reptitions. Or so my wife tells me. I'm amazed sometimes what she can teach them in an afternoon.
Course, the challenge is in getting them to understand what it is you need them to do.
November 14, 2013 at 10:04 am
peterzeke (11/14/2013)
I read the brief text describing the TED talk video on the video webpage, and paid careful attetion to the statement about 20 hours essentially equates to 45 minutes a day for a month. Rounding it to 1 hour for 30 days gives you 30 hours. If I stuck to something for 30 consecutive days (45mins to 1 hour), I think I'd have a good grasp of the material -- not an expert, but a useful foundation. I think I'd finally conquer how to interpret execution plans skillfully, master Profiler and server side traces, juggle a dozens of variables in SSIS... and so on. I wouldn't be attempting to learn all of these things at once, but choosing a topic and focusing my efforts on that singular subject.Sean McCown (midnightdba.com), who happens to be a Powershell evangelist, wrote a really terrific article called "Nothing Beats Practice" (http://www.midnightdba.com/DBARant/?p=912. In the article he refers to "doing your 20s", which is all about repetition -- e.g., to learn how to perform backup/restore commands, repeat the process 20 times, everyday, for two weeks. By the end of two weeks, you'll likely remember the commands without thinking about them.
A researcher/author named Dr. John Medina studies the brain. One of his key principles is "Repeat to remember". To get something out of short term memory and into long term memory, repeat, repeat, repeat.
So, whether you spend 20 hours or 10,000 hours learning something, one of the key actions to be taken is repetition. Of course, physical performance can have its limitations -- for example, people who are of average height or less (i.e., less than 6ft) will probably never be able to slam-dunk a basketball into a regulation-height basketball rim --not even after 10,000 hours of practice. Barring these types of physical limitations, I still think that many, many subjects can be learned in a fairly short amount of time when the effort is diligent, purposeful, and frequently practiced -- along with enough sleep to have a brain capable of functioning for another day....
That's interesting. I might have to try that with Powershell. Spend some time repeating what I did the day or two before.
November 14, 2013 at 10:18 am
"Do you think you could learn something like Powershell in 20 hours?"
Depends, for me I would need a task that is to be done with Powershell. Then I would focus on completing that task. When said task is done does that mean I learned Powershell? Maybe not but at least I'd be able to add that to the list of tools I've used and I could say I know Powershell.
Or the ever popular saying, "I know enough to be dangerous"! 🙂
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