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How Do You Keep Up with All of the Reading?
An anonymous reader asks: "As a professional working in software, my days are full as it is. Whenever possible, though, I attempt to keep up with my technical reading, whether it be IEEE or ACM journals, conference proceedings, Slashdot, or countless other sources. The problem is, there's no way to keep up! The magazines and journals that interest me alone create more material in a year than I could ever hope to absorb, and don't even get me started on the conferences. Do you, as a software professional, consider yourself up-to-speed enough when it comes to the latest and greatest in the public domain? If so, where do you draw the line?"
President Bush is my role model.
Probably where this comment will be modd'ed too! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
There isn't any way to keep up with it all - the best philosophy I've found that helps was one reportedly attributed to Albert Einstein. "I don't know everything, but I know where to find it when I need it" Or something along those lines.
So skim - just remember enough to Google for it, or figure out which book it was in. What else can you do?
I live about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles where I work. I take the train to-and-from work and this gives me a chance to catch up on my reading.
/. for that...
I also get the IEEE Spectrum, which I scan for stuff that interests me, but I've stopped subscribing to specialized technical journals (like Communications or DSP) since they are often targeted towards the academia crowd anyway, and I have no time try and understand the latest proofs and treatises.
I read
"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?" --Yoda {whips out green light saber}
it's called the crapper... it is your friend, your fortress of solitude, and the throne of knowedge.
If you really want to know, then learn it. You aren't expected to know every inane detail of every inane system in the world. Pick a few nice news aggrigation systems, aggrigate them, the n have one source of 'news' every day.
Learn to pick out out what's relevent and what's the same old crap. That'll save you a lot of effort. Remember, half the crap you read on these sites are press releases from the companies involved.
Bye!
The long answer: Unlike you as a programmer where it is probably only implicit for you to be "keeping up", for me, it's actually an explicit part of my job to be out reading things like ACM and a bazillion other sources (and then summarizing or directing such information to my organization). I find that there are really a few strategies to attack the problem you bring up. I use different strategies for different areas, due to the nature of my expertise, interests, and time constraints. I'm not sure how many of these will work for you, as I am really in a much different position (and not in software)... but I hope this helps give you a few ideas (or gives fellow /.ers something to critique and give you better ideas)
By the way, ADRA already mentioned to specialize, and covered much of this at a high level. I'm expanding on that, as well as new things (s)he may have meant, but which were not explicit in that post.
(1) Per ADRA's advice: Specialize. This means you need to clearly admit that you will NOT be the best at everything. It's a very difficult step for an engineering-type to take, but it helps your sanity. The real key is learning to ask "Why?" - Why do you need to know it? You don't need to know every programming theory out there, but those that are relevant to your current work environment and some level of scanning for items that may be relevant to add to your work environment (because they will provide tangible benefits). Be careful when you take this step not to completely shut out other things, or you risk missing important points and connections. Per ADRA's advice, set up some RSS feeds in your browser or at an aggregation site... and scan them for items that may be related to your focus. Read the items that are critical to your focus area. I also find that it helps keep things interesting to have both a formal focus area (required for my job) and a "hobby" focus area (that I find interesting and may lead to future opportunities). This keeps the world under control in terms of volume, but keeps me up to date in some critical areas. I change the "hobby" area periodically to ensure I continue to be challenged. Also, communicate with your co-workers that are in the same area or work on the same project to coordinate what you will look into. This may mean no overlap or intentional overlap, depending on your personalities and size of the group. But this can lighten the load and actually improve communication. You can also discuss certain topics with them to find out what they know and whether it is relevant to your current environment. If none of you know, a targeted (detailed) effort by the group should be able to find some good sources for all of you to use. As another strategy in specialization, I sometimes force themes into the work as well, deferring all reading on unit testing until a given month, for example (allowing it to build up and therefore being able to better realize what is good and what is a redundant item)
(2) Be a traffic director (or: don't specialize at all). This is actually a lot of what I do. I have specialists that are my co-workers. This may be because it is their responsibility or simply something they are interested in. They're a heck of a lot smarter than I am in almost every specific area. But my strength is putting the pieces together (or that's the theory, anyway :) ). Thus, when I scan something and it may be relevant to them, I forward on the link or article. I may include a specific question, e.g.: "Is this technology relevant to project X?" in order to get specific feedback. When I actually read something and it is relevant to my job and may have an impact on one of our projects or the company, I will send out a link to the article as well as my analysis (5 sentences or less) of why I think it's significant. (I may attach further links as educational material if there is high turnover of mem
Finding stuff worth reading - who wants to keep up with crap? There doesn't seem to be a torrent of info (please prove me wrong), just a torrent of crap. Most of the stuff is just old or crap/wrong or redundant. Why waste plenty of time reading stuff you already know/can trivially figure out or is wrong?
...." - now these are stuff I'd find interesting.
;).
If you have a good idea of how things work in a particular area, a good source of info can often allow you to very quickly understand what's so innovative/cool about this "new thing". Unfortunately such sources are quite rare.
The rate of technological progress so far doesn't seem that fast to me (medical, computer, physics, bio, engineering, automotive, aerospace). It's not surprising though - since it usually takes longer to come up with something significant than to understand why it is significant.
I mean, yet another hot fusion idea that is far far from "breaking-even", with no significant advantages. Doh. Like who cares.
Whereas if you have: "Major advance in hot fusion!" or even "Cold Fusion phenomena explained near conclusively - not fusion but due to
Or "one successful clone made from Yet Another Animal out of 500 tries". Who cares other than those directly involved. Whereas "Experimental cure for XXxx cancer does well in test stage" now that would be interesting.
Sure spaceshipone was interesting, but they are pretty far from orbit. And people have already done orbit decades ago, so there really isn't very much for a reader to catch up on is there? The aerospace field seems quite stagnant compared to the days of U2, SR71, B70, F-14 to F16, first man in orbit, man on moon, concorde, 747, Harrier (in no particular order).
Not interested in vapourware either OK?
It's hard to find stuff worth reading - so much so I even resort to reading Slashdot. Like what are you doing here anyway - checking for dupes?
At the risk of sounding like I'm just sucking up, I actually find Slashdot to be one of the best resources for a programmer with general interest in most things IT, which I am.
There is a simple reason for this. We all know that there is loads of material out there, but something genuinely new and original is hard to find. However, when such a thing does come along, it's a sure bet that five million people (or one well-informed academic, depending) will submit an article to Slashdot, and the editors are smart enough to spot that submission and put it up on the front page. This sort of "digest" is invaluable as a starting point for further research.
The other thing is to distinguish reading background articles on potentially useful technologies so you have a rough idea of their strengths and weaknesses from reading detailed specs on things you might never need to know about. When you come across a project where they might be useful and you have a real context for further investigation, that's when download the detailed specs, buy the books, etc. Again, Slashdot is often quite useful for this, because amongst the detritus that swamps most discussions, there are a few pearls from genuinely informed people, and reading the right four or five backgrounders over a couple of years is worth more than reading thirty glorified press releases by companies offering the same technology in a different wrapper this week.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Unfortunately, "late postings" on Slashdot means aanything more than a few hours after the article goes up, and those posters are MUCH less likely to be modded up than posters in the first hour. Since you have to be modded up to get a Score:3, reading at level 3 means mostly reading early posters.
More unfortunate, the people with the best knowledge are least likely to have the time to check in on Slashdot every hour (or every day), so their posts will almost always be "late" posts.
I'm not griping about the moderation system, I'm just observing that with such a heavy bias toward early posters and with the posters with the most to say being so heavily biases toward late posts, the strategy of setting your browser to a high level isn't as useful as one might hope.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."