Spend 20 Percent of Your Time Learning New Things

He says things like, "Do good stuff." He says, "If you don't do good stuff, in good areas, it doesn't matter what you do." And Hamming said, "I always spend a day a week learning new stuff. That means I spend 20 percent more of my time than my colleagues learning new stuff. Now 20 percent at compound interest means that after four and a half years I will know twice as much as them. And because of compound interest, this 20 percent extra, one day a week, after five years I will know three times as much," or whatever the figures are. And I think that's very true. Because I do research I don't spend 20 percent of my time thinking about new stuff, I spend 40 percent of my time thinking about new stuff. And I've done it for 30 years. So I've noticed that I know a lot of stuff. When I get pulled in as a troubleshooter, boom, do it that way, do it that way. You were asking earlier what should one do to become a better programmer? Spend 20 percent of your time learning stuff—because it's compounded. Read Hamming's paper.

From Joe Armstrong, the "compound interest" on this learning will result in big gains in the future.