Mastery Takes Time

I have talked about achieving mastery previously. Here's another, perhaps better researched article on how long it takes to achieve mastery of a discipline. For those too indolent to click a link, what it says is that it takes about 10,000 hours, or about five full-time years, to obtain a reasonable degree of mastery, and it doesn't matter what it is; playing the violin, swinging a baseball bat, or coding in C++. A study of violinists indicated that "natural" talent was not a factor. The people who were the best were the ones who practiced the most and the longest.

This is something recent college grads all seem not to know about the careers on which they are embarking. They think (like I once thought) that their natural intelligence and their good education was what made the difference. As an Old Hand, I can tell you that practice has a lot to do with it, and good as you are, you will get a lot better when you've been doing the job for 20 years.