[HN Gopher] Maker Skill Trees
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Maker Skill Trees
Author : saulpw
Score : 173 points
Date : 2024-08-28 17:01 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Maker merit badges
| genericone wrote:
| a la eagle scouts? https://www.scouting.org/skills/merit-
| badges/eagle-required/
| willmeyers wrote:
| I agree. These are fun badges to maybe collect and help move
| you along a path. I don't think they should be followed in a
| sequence. For example, if you look at the game development
| one... why do I need to write a game design document before
| making a game? Doesn't seem like the right approach in my
| opinion.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Notice that these are hexagonal and you can chart a path
| right around that tile.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I thought the "House Building" one would include things like
| wiring, plumbing, drywall, mudding & taping, texturing, painting,
| finish carpentry, framing/formbuilding(rough carpentry),
| concrete, flooring, and so on. Instead it's more about doing
| feasability and stuff. The Renovation & Repair one lumps a lot of
| discrete skill sets together and maybe leaves a lot of stuff up
| to "experts."
|
| A lot of these "skill sets" have fractal complexity, where if you
| dig in on "Concrete work" you'll find yourself going down a
| rabbit hole of form building, hydrostatic pressure, foundation
| squaring, and so on. Even pouring an unreinforced slab for a
| patio requires some distinct skills. Plumbing is the same way
| where being able to replace a water heater could devolve into
| sweating new fittings.
|
| Is the intent here to document what you could do without knowing
| what the residential code is and how to pull permits in your
| area?
| ForOldHack wrote:
| I would assume that you are not a carpenter: As a carpenter, I
| would include: Knowledge of Universal Building Codes, knowledge
| of local building codes, Local code checklists, Blue print
| reading, Site survey reading, and first hand knowledge of your
| local building department. (AHJ)
|
| Concrete forms, soil management, concrete testing, that is more
| than a rabbit hole, its a whole immense specialty. ( Ask
| Richard Sloan, who literally taught me how to finish concrete
| like glass... over very large areas. )
|
| Tiling is deep also. ( Thanks Alejandro ).
|
| Even after more than 10 years work, texturing as a skill is
| still beyond me, and like far beyond me.
|
| Your point is well taken, but...
|
| This is an amazingly LARGE amount of work.
|
| Environmental skill?I cannot wait to see this one:
|
| I should make a Building a Desktop PC, Coaching, Transform your
| life. Truck Driving and Taking no sh*.
| linsomniac wrote:
| >Tiling is deep [...] texturing is a skill beyond me.
|
| Interesting. Sounds like you have way more experience than
| me, but I feel pretty comfortable doing tiling and do a
| decent job, after doing a kitchen floor, backsplash, bathroom
| floor, and shower. The biggest risk with doing tiling is once
| you learn how to do it, you'll start noticing bad tiling jobs
| everywhere. Particularly lippage.
|
| I've also done decent jobs of texturing the couple attempts
| I've done. I don't love them, if I stare at them I think they
| look terrible but if I'm walking past I don't notice them.
| What in car racing they'd call a 50/50 paint job: looks good
| from 50 feet when it's going 50MPH. :-) But, what I'm
| starting to do, and what I did on my bathroom remodel, is
| doing a level 5 finish. It took me a while to get to where I
| was happy, but not having to texture and instead just
| painting the untextured wall came out pretty nice. I guess
| it's more common in "the west" to texture and level 5 in "the
| east" (USA).
| linsomniac wrote:
| >what you could do without knowing what the residential code is
| and how to pull permits in your area?
|
| Don't let permits stop you. I'm sure it varies from location to
| location, but our city permit office is crazy helpful to
| DIYers, and it makes sense: making it easy for DIYers to get
| permits and inspections is a huge win for safety in the long
| run.
|
| I love having the "backstop" of an inspection to find any
| problems I have, and the inspectors have all been extremely
| nice. And for my tub drain, it was in a confined area that was
| really hard to work the necessary pieces in, the general
| inspector called in a plumbing inspector who called in a master
| plumber before we could get it worked out so that I didn't end
| up with an S-trap.
| p3rls wrote:
| Literally three people to do a tub waste, wow, btw just about
| every tub waste is in a confined area where it's hard to work
| the necessary pieces in. That is the nature of tub wastes.
| stonethrowaway wrote:
| "Maker movement" is a hard commercialization angle of DIY, or
| really, doing anything. Not sure who came up with the label
| "Maker" but I'm personally not a fan. Maybe reading Christopher
| Tolkien has rubbed off on me. As someone who works hands on with
| a lot of things, I can't help but feel like a cultural shift is
| taking place. I'm all for DIY so this is great, but you don't
| have to be a "Maker" to get shit done.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I have always understood "maker" to mean someone creating
| something new: Art, a new product, a bespoke bit of sports
| equipment. I do not believe that going whitewater rafting or
| reading an e-book qualifies as anything. Pouring cement or
| wiring a new light switch is more handyman than "maker" imho.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| To me it's less about DIY [0] and more about a production vs
| consumption attitude. The label "maker" is meant to distinguish
| someone who makes stuff, as opposed to consuming stuff (e.g.
| watch a TV show) or doing stuff (e.g. rock climbing).
|
| Sure, the word had been coopted to sell things. But so has DIY.
| And basically any label. If something is big enough to have a
| label that enough people use, someone else is going to use it
| to sell to that group. Our society commercializes the hell out
| of everything.
|
| [0] but of course there's overlap
| gspencley wrote:
| As with anything, the word starts to get applied to things that
| the originators didn't necessarily intend.
|
| My working definition of "maker" is someone who fabricates
| physical things. It's less DIY'er and more crafts & hobbies on
| steroids. The classic example is people who work in prop
| departments in movies and theatre. In that arena, you need to
| be a jack of all trades when it comes to fabricating physical
| anything. The skills include everything from woodworking and
| metalworking to mold making, model making, painting etc.
|
| The more you specialize the less the word "maker" applies as I
| conceive of it. A guitar luthier could certainly be considered
| a maker by some, I mean it is "making guitars" but the term is
| intentionally broader than someone who specializes in making
| something very specific.
|
| But consider the term "furniture maker." We have used the word
| "maker" in the past to describe someone who makes something
| specific. You just take off the qualifier and you have someone
| who makes all sorts of things.
|
| My wife and I are part time magicians and what I often say
| drives me to magic is that it is the ultimate "maker" hobby. It
| is extremely multi-disciplined. There's the strict "magic
| domain" (misdirection, sleight of hand) but depending on what
| you want to do you end up getting into all sorts of tangential
| skill development from costume and wardrobe fabrication to
| building illusions out of a variety of materials (woodworking &
| metal working) to making smaller hidden devices ("gimmicks" as
| magicians call them) to practical VFX (makeup, prosthetics
| etc.)
|
| All that being said, I completely agree that the term has
| become so overused as to start to border on meaningless.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > It's less DIY'er and more crafts & hobbies on steroids.
|
| This is how I view it as well. DIY is something entirely
| different from making. But the term has been misused for so
| long that it has, at least in the larger population, lost a
| whole lot of meaning.
| lif wrote:
| you mention Christopher Tolkien: which of his writings are you
| alluding to? as a fan, I'd love to learn more!
| nescioquid wrote:
| My impression is that the term came from Make magazine
| marketing/PR/branding.
|
| I think that we say "maker spaces" rather than "hacker spaces"
| probably has a lot to do with the success of Make's branding
| efforts.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Advanced cooking skill: "Make Sushi"
|
| No. Do not attempt this casually. Every couple years someone in
| the northwest gets the idea to catch their own salmon and serve
| it up as sushi. Sushi is not an at-home thing. Either learn to
| freeze the fish yourself per local hygiene rules and in the
| correct freezer, or buy from the professionals.
|
| For reference, with tables listing the basic rules in various
| jurisdictions:
| https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/E/2017/...
| tptacek wrote:
| I haven't read it, but I assume "making sushi" starts with
| buying sashimi-safe proteins, not literally catching fish out
| of the water. Some proteins, like farmed Atlantic salmon, are
| safe enough that you can just buy them at Whole Foods. Bluefin
| tuna appears to actually be exempt from the FDA freezing rule,
| too.
|
| You can in fact casually make nigiri. It's not a big deal. I'd
| start with poke, though, because good nigiri is actually pretty
| hard to do.
|
| As someone commented on AskCulinary: the big no-no is random
| (non-exempt) raw wild catch.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| It's generally considered safe to eat raw Norwegian farmed
| salmon: https://www.fromnorway.com/stories-from-
| norway/a-perfect-env...
| lkbm wrote:
| "Make Sushi" doesn't mean "catch and prepare your own salmon".
| It just means you assemble some seaweed, rice, and optionally
| raw fish. It's 100% in the realm of doable (safely) by an
| amateur.
|
| Sushi is absolutely, 100% an "at-home thing". The idea that
| only "professionals" can do things is something we need to get
| away from, and I would hope people will see these charts and be
| inspired to leave that sort of learned helplessness behind in
| at least one area of their lives.
|
| Go ahead, go make some sushi. People have been doing it for as
| long as sushi has existed. You can leave off the raw fish if
| you're unsure how to do that safely.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Most basic sushi just starts with cucumber, maybe avocado,
| carrot, perhaps going a little beyond and doing a Japanese
| omelette topping, and obviously seaweed. I wouldn't consider
| fish to be part of any first attempt at sushi. It's all about
| the rice and vinegar and getting handy at working with it.
|
| Sandworm101 seems to be thinking of sashimi.
| tptacek wrote:
| It's still fine. You can just go to Costco and get blocks
| of cheap ahi, or farmed salmon at Safeway. People are too
| nervous about this.
| ecshafer wrote:
| These skill trees are so awful. The computing one has "learn to
| type on a keyboard" after buying a domain, setting up an email
| domain, make a website, make a blog, or building your own
| computer. Their measure of advance in general is basically
| random.
|
| Also they aren't trees.
| mguerville wrote:
| The entrepreneur one has "visit a coworking space" at the mid
| level of difficulty...
| Zondartul wrote:
| I applaud the effort, but, these templated skill trees are just
| not very good imo. I have only one issue but it's a big one:
|
| It's missing a tree structure, so there is no ordering of skills
| (learn easy stuff before hard stuff because there is a learning
| curve to anything).
|
| They might be good as prints to hang on your wall, but in the
| current state they're more "achievement lists" rather than
| anything resembling a tech tree.
| bhelkey wrote:
| It looks like the easy stuff is at the bottom and the harder
| stuff is at the top. It's more of a skill line than a skill
| tree.
|
| That being said, I find the idea intriguing and the format
| appealing.
| throwup238 wrote:
| This is a brilliant idea but execution leaves a lot to be
| desired. I get that there's a lot of judgement calls going on
| here but I really wish this would become a popular project with
| lots of subject experts to weigh in.
|
| Looking at the PCB design skill tree, it just doesn't look very
| realistic. "Use an Autorouting tool," for example, is second
| after "Learn PCB Software" when it should be in the top half of
| the tree (if not in the top few rows).
|
| "Design an SMD PCB" is on the same horizontal line as "Hand
| solder SMD Parts", as is "Learn to Read a Schematic" and "Learn
| PCB Software"(?!) Learning the PCB design software is a process
| that must run in parallel with most of the skill tree.
|
| "Use a reflow oven to solder a PCB" is two who levels above "Use
| a pick & place machine" and so on. I get that a lot of this is
| path dependent on experience but "Use SMD tweezers" should
| probably go alongside "Solder SMD parts"...
| cbb330 wrote:
| If you contribute your expertise to improve the skill tree you
| can even get a cool sticker.
|
| https://github.com/sjpiper145/MakerSkillTree?tab=readme-ov-f...
| groby_b wrote:
| I'm going "meh" here for all the skill trees I'm actually
| familiar with. Using keyboard shortcuts has nothing to do with
| coding. Negronis don't require more skills than old-fashioneds.
| Change Bedsheets comes well before any deep cleaning. The music
| one is just utterly absurd ("learn a difficult lick" before
| "learn guitar"?)
|
| I love the idea. The execution... leaves questions.
| BanazirGalbasi wrote:
| After skimming the skills I'm familiar with, I came to the same
| conclusion. I was actually relieved when I saw that
| Blacksmithing isn't finished yet, and that's something that I'm
| definitely still an amateur at. I can't contribute anything
| meaningful to it, nor do I feel like it really needs an in-
| depth skill tree because most of it is just applying the same
| few basic skills in different orders.
|
| I feel like the author should have done a few for areas that
| they are actually knowledgeable in, then left the rest up to
| others. These feel too much like they were made by someone who
| tried to learn the surface of every topic they could access but
| doesn't know enough to organize any of what they learned.
| delichon wrote:
| I think that this is getting negative feedback because "skill
| trees" raise expectations that this doesn't satisfy. A skill tree
| would be a dependency graph showing which skills depend on which
| other skills. This is more of a template for a related set of
| skills stacked by difficulty. Maybe just call it "Maker Skill
| Stacks" to head off the disappointment.
| lkbm wrote:
| Yeah, something like that would help--I might go with
| "achievement chart", since many aren't even "skills".
|
| But there's also a lot of people pointing out that the basic vs
| advanced sorting is really questionable in some cases. It's
| going to be impossible to get an objectively correct sorting,
| but some seem to just be completely wrong.
| blargey wrote:
| Also since they're not really "skills" so much as items in a
| bucket list for your hobby, spread out horizontally.
| lkbm wrote:
| Cooking has _such_ a weird idea of basic vs. advanced.
|
| "Make garlic bread" is near the bottom, and then "use fresh
| garlic or ginger in a meal" is _five rows higher_. Apparently
| using fresh garlic and ginger is more advanced than "make a
| daal", which I've never considered even doing _without_ fresh
| ginger?
|
| (And, wait, making popcorn is even more advanced?!)
|
| These specifics aside, the big issue I have is that
| basic/advanced is the wrong axis. It should be fundamental
| building blocks going up to more complex things dependent on
| those building blocks: using fresh ginger is a building block you
| learn so you can cook daal. You don't learn how to cook daal and
| at a later date learn how to add spices!
| freestyle24147 wrote:
| Were these skill "trees" the output of an LLM or something? Of
| the domains I have a lot of familiarity with, the ordering (if it
| can even be assumed the easy ones are at the bottom and the hard
| ones at the top) make little sense.
|
| I think if I were a newbie in any of these subjects and followed
| the "trees" as presented I would be quickly discouraged and lost.
| bhelkey wrote:
| I love the idea, I love the format. As others have mentioned this
| isn't really a skill tree, it is more of a skill line.
|
| It is extremely difficult to be an expert in ~50 different
| skills. Because of this, it is difficult to make ~50 high quality
| skill progressions.
|
| Have you considered trying to crowd source skill achievements and
| priorities for these progressions?
| user3939382 wrote:
| For the uninitiated there are robust formal versions of this used
| by industry. My product bases higher ed and corporate assessment
| scoring on these. Check out ONET and Lightcast as a starting
| place.
| t-writescode wrote:
| So much hate here in these comments and threads. I know for
| myself, sometimes it's good to even have an idea of
| small/medium/large sized projects / ideas to run with to consider
| as an "experience" in doing a new skill I've never worked in
| before.
|
| It looks like these are an attempt to create units of work that
| are approachable and individually researchable to complete.
|
| I think it's pretty great!
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| The great thing about open source is that it enables all the
| people with the time to post negative comments here to address
| the shortcomings that their keen eyes have spotted...right?
| ldayley wrote:
| This is a fantastic idea, and I think the overall negativity
| misses the point of it being an evolving and collaborative
| project on github.
|
| When you don't know what you don't know, any little map can be
| helpful to get one started.
|
| When one desires to learn a skill they usually don't know what
| questions to ask to get started. This is one of the biggest
| challenges in learning, and there's a multibillion dollar
| industry devoted to easing that burden via textbooks and
| instructional videos. But equally important: beginners don't have
| a mental model for where that specific desired skill or knowledge
| lies on the continuum of the domain in which they're seeking to
| grow. This project puts skills in context, even if some of those
| contexts are (currently) very flawed.
|
| For example, I've begun working with a couple of teenage garage
| bands that live near me. I have a lot of experience as a working
| musician, and they didn't have any at all-- but they knew they
| wanted to write, record, and perform teenage garage music. I
| noticed a "Music" domain on the maker tree. It could use
| improvement, but what it does is make clear that there's more to
| being a performing musician than learning guitar. In fact I've
| watched these kids go from "make a playlist" to "learn about
| copyright & licensing" to "produce a track with another person"
| to "play a ticketed show", and many of these steps were both
| required ("learn to keep a beat" springs to mind ;) ) and also
| not obvious to them when they started.
|
| Each one of these domains is massive and full of intrinsic,
| context-dependent experiential knowledge. But they make a great
| starting point. I already learned some things about, say, the PCB
| design domain and have a better catalog of what I'd need to
| search the internet for to begin that rabbit-hole.
|
| Edit: spelling, grammar
| mikewarot wrote:
| I'm pretty amazed at the idea, and how many variations are
| already filled out. The ones I knew something about seemed really
| complete. Well done!
| agumonkey wrote:
| Brilliant trick. I wonder how to pair this with spaced repetition
| for iterating smoothly on each step.
| starkparker wrote:
| Really wish these were called achievements instead of a skill
| tree to head off every discussion fixated on how these aren't
| actually tree structures and/or don't work like, or even have a
| similar intent as, video game skill trees.
|
| Especially seeing them in practice, it's pretty clear to me that
| the goal is to fill in all the segments, which helps to identify
| which skills or projects might be be sitting in a blind spot. And
| especially in a group environment, helping to point out which
| people might be able to answer questions about specific tasks
| because it's easier to spot on a chart like this than asking each
| member the same questions.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I checked out learn to code. Had things like write a quicksort,
| use a bitwise operator, teach a friend, give a speech on coding.
|
| Probably not the most useful list.
| benatkin wrote:
| LGTM
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(page generated 2024-08-28 23:00 UTC)