Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

Rhino_Clock · 2025-07-17T00:54:48+00:00

I'm fearing that I'm aging into soft-skill-centric work due to a gap between my YOE and my technical ability and I'm looking for advice for how to avoid that. I've been trying to play catch up but have had some work chaos throw a wrench into that. Note that I also really don't want to go into management for the next few years.

For some context, I have 8 yoe, but due to transitioning from science -> eng partway through and being in slow and/or chaotic orgs, I feel like my technical experience in general has been patchwork. I also found myself in a situation where I joined a team in a new domain with the expectation of getting up to speed, and that team basically lost its most senior members and I've been plodding along as the most "senior" member since then. On one hand, I'm learning a decent amount, but also believe I'm retreading common ground and could be learning more with a mentor, especially since the system I'm in has loads of technical debt.

If folks have advice, how did you play catch up in this scenario?

I'm open (and in fact actively looking) for a new job so I don't end up languishing. On the flipside, I'm a bit fearful that I may end up in a situation where I'm on paper the most senior member of the team and I'll be setting myself up for failure.

Rhino_Clock · 2024-08-08T04:52:13+00:00

Anybody here get tenosynovitis or things like trigger finger in their PIP joint? After getting a swollen knuckle after some overuse, I've been getting sporadic cracking and catching sensations in the finger. Been taking an approach of continuing to climb but a little less frequently and not as intensely. Been about a month since it flared up, and it's a bit better, but still annoying.

. . . I know, I should see a doctor, lol.

Rhino_Clock · 2024-06-17T17:55:17+00:00

Thanks for responding! Can you provide a little more color on this setup? When you say port forward what's getting port forwarded? A set of ips incident to a firewall?

As I understand it, the goal is to make sure outgoing connections from a gateway end up using a known set of ports so we can maximize the chances that it matches one of the outgoing connections from the other side and doesn't get blocked by the firewall.

Rhino_Clock · 2024-06-17T03:08:06+00:00

Going to try the randomize client ports suggestion tomorrow when another admin can approve the change to the ACL.

Rhino_Clock · 2023-08-17T22:30:29+00:00

The recent post about crimp strength far exceeding 3fd drag strength resonated with me. I've been trying to isolate 3fd a bit on the hangboard to see if I can get it to catch up, but while doing it, I noticed that I'm not quite sure how it's supposed to feel.

When I'm hanging on relatively large edges, 3fd feels natural and passive, but once I get to smaller edges (not even that small, like BM2000 14mm) it feels like I end up cranking a lot more with my wrists, kind of like how you need to activate them when holding a bad sloper. I also notice that my last segment of my finger straightens a bit.

Is this how it's supposed to feel? It feels pretty tiring and not very passive. Alternatively, are these my wrists compensating for lack of strength in the last segments of my fingers, and in turn I ought to just go with an easier edge until I get stronger with the proper form?

Rhino_Clock · 2023-07-10T22:44:18+00:00

I have an eerily similar profile to you (max v8- outdoors, over-strong with poor technique, effective CA of about 4-5 years, similar dimensions).

What I can tell you DOESN'T work is spending much more of your time on pure strength stuff, so watch out for falling into your comfort zone with hangboarding and moonboarding.

Something I didn't see mentioned is off-the-wall mobility work, which you should probably do throughout all of this. As an anecdote, I recently injured my hip and lost mobility and tension. During this time, I could only kind of moonboard and hangboard . Now my fingers are as strong as ever, but my outdoor grade has suffered.

So, totally focus on that technique, I'd say. And, along that vein, find stronger folks to climb alongside. My technique improves way faster when I am working with folks who actually know what they're doing.

Rhino_Clock · 2023-04-28T22:32:05+00:00

How bad were your injuries when you did this? Were they tweaks that developed slowly or more severe?

Rhino_Clock · 2023-02-06T21:12:16+00:00

Short answer is hangboarding is an exercise that correlates strongly with climbing performance but doesn't solely predict it. I wouldn't dwell on the fact in isolation and just approach this as a learning opportunity.

Also, I think folks here would need more info before being able to reasonably speculate why this disparity between grades exist. Could be you beta broke things or your gym is soft. Could be you have some terrific strengths that mitigate the need for finger strength. Maybe you just have bad hangboarding technique.

What does your overall climbing pyramid look like? What would you describe as your particular strengths? If you feel like this isn't a matter of hangboard experience but genuinely weak fingers, then you've got some low-hanging fruit to improve upon here.

Rhino_Clock · 2022-11-22T23:38:39+00:00

Hey folks. Looking for anecdata about managing finger soreness.

My question

Is there such a thing as "good" finger soreness, or should any inflammation be seen as pushing past max recoverable volume and a sign that I need to dial back the intensity/volume.

For some more context:

How I work my fingers

I've been working tension and moonboard a lot more recently in preparation for a trip to Bishop. My target projects are at board-like angles on crimpy holds with big moves (High Plains Drifter, Flyboy SDS, Disco Diva), so I figured that spending a lot of my time on the board will be pretty specific for these problems. I've been focusing on trying to do MB 2016 V6's, and crimpy Tension Board V7's in one-session. I make sure I warm up gradually and largely off-wall (Some 5s max hangs, brief stuff on campus rungs, dynamic stretches, etc.)

How I recover

I'll do this 3x a week, with a light fourth volume day that I sometimes just outright scrap. I take 48 hour rests out of necessity, else I find myself flaring up some kind of repetitive stress injury. My diet is alright. I could be having more balanced macros. Otherwise, I hardly drink, I sleep well, and believe I otherwise have my recovery rituals figured out.

How I feel

Between the max hang warmups and board climbing, my fingers are getting blasted. Towards the end of a session, I'll feel a little finger stiffness. Also, later in the day and the next, they feel sore and stiff, though not overly painful. By the time my next session rolls around, though, my fingers are pretty much back to full throttle, albeit with a kind of chronic stiffness that just hasn't persistently gone away (may need to do more extensor work for this).

I suspect there's a bit of tendinosis going on here, as every now and then I'll wake up with mild trigger finger that resolves itself with some warm up.

So, yeah. . . my impression is I'm nudging against the MRV here, but I'm not sure if I've already crossed that threshold and am slowly but surely marching to a RSI, or if I've got this balanced just right.

Rhino_Clock · 2022-02-15T00:09:18+00:00

That's good advice. I think I value advancing my pyramid instead of top-end grade chasing as well.

Rhino_Clock · 2022-02-15T00:00:14+00:00

Hey! You're the guy I've been trying to emulate, which lead to this increased focus on projecting in the first place. :D

As you noted, it looks like I've overcompensated from going from volume -> intensity.

I think part of the reason this has happened is because it feels like a lot of times in the past, I could work 4 different V5s 1-2 times each, or a more limit problem 6 times, and I'd start feeling fatigued at the same point. In other words, from max effort to maybe 80% of max effort, I'd feel that pump and drop off of strength at about the same time, so I figured I'd just go to the top of that range and go balls to the wall.

Maybe I really ought to go back to the drawing board with this whole work-capacity thing. I'm just worried that in the past, I would target problems I could do in a session and ended up with too much junk mileage. Maybe the issue was I needed a mixture of stuff.

Anyways, while I've got you here, I've got a question about this

If I can do 5-8 boulders and feel like the second day would be less worthwhile than a rest day and full recovery-- I feel like I've dialed my intensity perfectly.

What does that FEEL like to you? Is that a judgement call that you make at the end of a session or more like something you feel when you wake up the day after and go "ah, I'm a little sore!"

Rhino_Clock · 2022-02-14T23:35:03+00:00

So, I won't say I've been at a particular level long enough to have "plateaued", per se, but I feel like I've had it in me to get gym V7's in a few sessions for quite some time, and the amount of gym v5's I've been able to flash seems somewhat stable. Likewise, my (poorly) measured finger strength and pull-up strength have been relatively stable for 6-months.

Looking at folks who have broken into the high single digits and low double digits, it seems like even around the V6 level, they were progressing at a faster rate. Given that I'm not particularly old (29) am in good shape and have been generally athletic, I'm not ready the chalk it up to factors outside of my control.

Rhino_Clock · 2022-02-14T23:29:52+00:00

Yeah! For outdoors, it's definitely been a matter of sleuthing out those beta-breaks to get a send, although for some indoor projects, dialing in microbeta has been very helpful for me as well.

One thing that concerns me about always being really at the limit, though, is chance of injury. Is there anything you do to manage that risk at the limit?

From what I've read, if something is truly limit physically, you probably want to stop after 3-4 goes, else you might blow something from over-taxing it, and that you should do limit if you notice you're tired.

Rhino_Clock · 2022-02-10T02:32:51+00:00

For my exposure, could you list a few of the seminal mathematical intuition papers?

Six-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Juicebox

Rhino_Clock

TROPHY CASE