<story><title>The 100-Hour Rule</title><url>http://codingvc.com/the-100-hour-rule/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mightybyte</author><text>I get really annoyed by these sound bites claiming certain numbers of hours.  The article does have the caveat &amp;quot;while &amp;#x27;100&amp;#x27; is an easy-to-remember round number, it&amp;#x27;s just an approximation&amp;quot;, but the realities of that caveat make the title very misleading.&lt;p&gt;The number of hours required for basic competence is HIGHLY dependent on three key things:&lt;p&gt;1. The particular activity&lt;p&gt;2. The abilities of the person&lt;p&gt;3. How much competence you consider &amp;quot;basic&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I submit that these three factors have so much variance that it makes any kind of N-hour rule mostly useless.  I know people who can pick up a new programming language very quickly, but would take a long time to achieve basic competence in a new physical activity.  Conversely, I know people who can pick up new sports very quickly, but it would take them FAR longer than 100 hours to learn to program with decent competency.  (Hell, I think it takes far longer than 100 hours for even a naturally talented non-programmer to learn to program.)&lt;p&gt;Some activities have straight-up MUCH steeper learning curves than other activities.  For example, it takes longer to get good at olympic lifting than it does to get good at running.  You might even disagree with that particular example, but if you do, that speaks to the third point of varying definitions of &amp;quot;basic&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The bottom line is that there is no substitute for hours of focused effort.  Yes, you want to be aware of techniques that can make your effort achieve better results, but you still have to put in the hours.  How many hours?  I can&amp;#x27;t possibly say without knowing a lot more about you, the activity, and what level of competence you&amp;#x27;re shooting for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lpolovets</author><text>(I&amp;#x27;m the post&amp;#x27;s author.)&lt;p&gt;I fully agree with you: the title is a sound byte and somewhat imprecise. Creating good titles has been an ongoing struggle for me. As an engineer, I want to be precise; as a writer, I want more readers. What I&amp;#x27;ve learned over time is that something like &amp;quot;The 100-hour rule&amp;quot; performs way better than something like &amp;quot;the speed of knowledge acquisition decelerates rapidly.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Hopefully the post&amp;#x27;s gist is clear: it takes a long time to become a true expert&amp;#x2F;master, but much less time to surpass everyone who has zero knowledge about a field.</text></comment>
<story><title>The 100-Hour Rule</title><url>http://codingvc.com/the-100-hour-rule/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mightybyte</author><text>I get really annoyed by these sound bites claiming certain numbers of hours.  The article does have the caveat &amp;quot;while &amp;#x27;100&amp;#x27; is an easy-to-remember round number, it&amp;#x27;s just an approximation&amp;quot;, but the realities of that caveat make the title very misleading.&lt;p&gt;The number of hours required for basic competence is HIGHLY dependent on three key things:&lt;p&gt;1. The particular activity&lt;p&gt;2. The abilities of the person&lt;p&gt;3. How much competence you consider &amp;quot;basic&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I submit that these three factors have so much variance that it makes any kind of N-hour rule mostly useless.  I know people who can pick up a new programming language very quickly, but would take a long time to achieve basic competence in a new physical activity.  Conversely, I know people who can pick up new sports very quickly, but it would take them FAR longer than 100 hours to learn to program with decent competency.  (Hell, I think it takes far longer than 100 hours for even a naturally talented non-programmer to learn to program.)&lt;p&gt;Some activities have straight-up MUCH steeper learning curves than other activities.  For example, it takes longer to get good at olympic lifting than it does to get good at running.  You might even disagree with that particular example, but if you do, that speaks to the third point of varying definitions of &amp;quot;basic&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The bottom line is that there is no substitute for hours of focused effort.  Yes, you want to be aware of techniques that can make your effort achieve better results, but you still have to put in the hours.  How many hours?  I can&amp;#x27;t possibly say without knowing a lot more about you, the activity, and what level of competence you&amp;#x27;re shooting for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>credit_guy</author><text>Very insightful comment, thank you for posting it. 
Let me put a positive spin on it. While the unconditional variance is so large that the statement is meaningless, if you condition on your 3 factors, I think you can obtain a pretty good predictor.&lt;p&gt;For example, for the combination 1. activity = running, 2. person = world champion in cycling, 3. competence = sub-3-hour marathon, then you would expect the time to be around 100 hours. Lance Armstrong fits this combination. How long he trained, we can&amp;#x27;t know for sure, but the first google hit for (a free) marathon training program at the elite level [1] shows 85h total running time.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.yourmarathontrainingplan.com&amp;#x2F;free-training-programs&amp;#x2F;elite&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.yourmarathontrainingplan.com&amp;#x2F;free-training-progra...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>