Summary
With nearly a quarter century of experience, we talked about how we learned to learn. From QBasic book memories to AI-personalized learning, from information scarcity to information poisoning, from social media addiction to the “fallow” principle — we shared practical advice across a wide spectrum. The conclusion: even as tools change, the only constant is curiosity.
Video
Topics
- The necessity of continuous learning in the software world
- The evolution of learning resources from past to present — from QBasic to AI
- From information scarcity to information poisoning: the art of finding the right knowledge
- Social media addiction and attention spans — focus dropping below 12 minutes
- Notification-muting strategies and “Deep Work”
- Learning by doing and the project-based approach
- The importance of learning one language deeply
- The Three-Generation Mentorship rule
- The “fallow” principle and developer blindness
- Using AI as a teacher — personalized learning
- The role of English in a technology career
Deep Dive
From QBasic to AI: How Did We Learn to Learn in 25 Years?
Over a quarter century, we witnessed many winds blow, many frameworks flare up and burn out like straw fires, and paradigms once declared permanent gather dust on forgotten shelves. Those of us who’ve passed the 20-year mark in the industry — when we call ourselves “dinosaurs” today, we’re not saluting burnout but a capacity for adaptation that has withstood the test of time. The most valuable thing I learned on this long journey wasn’t the technology itself — it was how to keep the mind alive as technology changes. In other words: learning to learn.
From Information Scarcity to Information Poisoning: The Art of Finding What’s True
In those years when we first stepped into the software world with QBasic, reaching information was a test of patience. There were no Turkish resources; getting a technical book from abroad was a luxury that took months. That one computer book we’d stumble across on a stationery shelf was like a sacred text to us.
Today, there’s an entirely different drama: information poisoning.
“Right now everything is at your fingertips. But this time, getting from excessive information to the right information — or the information you actually need — has become quite difficult.”
In yesterday’s world, finding information was hard. In today’s world, choosing the right information is hard. An abundance of information demands a strategic filtering ability.
The New Enemy of Focus: Deep Work in the Age of Notifications
The most insidious thief of the modern world is our attention. Studies show that our focus spans have dropped to 12 minutes — sometimes to mere seconds. Yet designing a software architecture, solving a complex problem at its root — these cannot be done with a “shallow” mind.
Real learning requires “Deep Work.” Turning off the notifications on your phone isn’t just a preference for quiet — it’s a professional competitive advantage. A mind interrupted every 12 minutes can only produce copy-paste solutions.
Charting Your Own Path and the Three-Generation Mentorship
Learning is as personal as a fingerprint. Burak meticulously taking notes and underlining his book while studying the Zig language, and Alper diving headfirst into Go saying “let’s see if I drown” — these are two sides of the same coin. One goes from theory to practice, the other from practice to theory. What matters is the “algorithmic logic” you gain when you truly master a language. Once you grasp the core logic, all languages become merely a difference in syntax.
For strategic growth, the Three-Generation Mentorship rule:
- A mentor older than you: You take experience and composure from them.
- A peer mentor: You interpret current developments together, mirror each other’s mistakes.
- A mentor younger than you: You learn energy, the excitement of new technologies, and the questions of an unencumbered mind from them.
The “Fallow” Principle and Developer Blindness
In farming, leaving land fallow for a year isn’t abandoning it — it’s allowing it to renew. In the software world, being perpetually buried in the same project leads to “developer blindness.” At some point, the mind can no longer see the solution even when it’s standing right in front of it.
“Fallow means leaving the field unplanted for a year… it’s a pause made to allow the field to renew itself in a sense. That’s important. People need to do the equivalent of that too.”
Shutting the computer and immersing yourself in a completely unrelated hobby isn’t a luxury — it’s a mental necessity. When the fallow period ends, you’ll find you can look at that project you were stuck on from a bird’s-eye perspective.
AI: The Next-Generation Dynamic Teacher
Unlike static books, AI is a living teacher tailored specifically to you. A book’s pages are the same for everyone, but AI shapes itself to your level and your gaps. You can sit it down in front of you like an English teacher and have it prepare a curriculum just for you.
But caution is warranted: AI can sometimes present a feature that doesn’t exist in a language as though it does (hallucination). Someone without a foundation in basic programming logic cannot debug AI’s mistakes. Even when AI writes the code, there will always be a need for a “master” mind to oversee it.
Conclusion: The Journey Never Ends
World Economic Forum reports list “adaptability” and “learning agility” as the most critical competencies. In this long quarter-century adventure, we’ve seen that while tools evolve from QBasic to AI, the only constant is curiosity.
Now pause for a moment and think: to reach the deep knowledge that will truly develop you today — which notifications are you ready to silence, and which fallows are you ready to give your mind?
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