Re^3: Leaving the "Know-it-all" Paradigm towards a Programmers Mindset

[thor]

I realize that you were being tongue-in-cheek, but I often consider the 4 stages of mastery to be (in order from least to greatest)

1. Not knowing what you don't know (i.e. you've never heard of anything in the domain)
2. Knowing what you know (i.e. you know only those things that you've specifically been told or looked up)
3. Knowing what you don't know (i.e. you know those things learned above, but also realize and know what parts of the domain you've yet to learn)
4. Not knowing what you know (i.e. your knowledge of the domain is so great that you can't list everything that you know about it, but are able to recall anything from within it)

I think that I got this ordering from somewhere here in the monestary, but laziness prevents me from looking for it. I'm sure someone will come along and point to the reference.

[talexb]

This list of four states of knowledge is also known as

1. unconsciously incompetent
2. consciously incompetent
3. consciously competent
4. unconsciously competent
I don't know where it comes from, but one of my friends and mentors mentioned it some time ago.

[thor]

It would seem that the what we're calling our respective lists should be switched. Mine pertains to knowledge in a particular domain while yours pertains to how well one does. To be sure, there is a correlation between knowledge and mastery, but being knowledgable does not necessarily imply being good and vice versa.