"How Do I Learn All Those Details?"

Mark Dalrymple introducing his great list of deep exploration tools and techniques:

I was chatting with one of my Ranch cohorts the other day. He said, “Hey MarkD, how do I learn all those details? I feel like I’m kind of stuck in limbo land, just using tableviews and whatnot.” Talk about a daunting question. Especially coming from an engineer of considerable skill. “Uh, you just do stuff?” isn’t a good answer.

I’ve been programming professionally (that is, actually making a living at it) for 23 years now. That’s longer than some of my coworkers have been alive. That’s a scary thought. Get off my lawn. Over the years I’ve fallen into a style of learning and exploration that’s paid some pretty good dividends. Of course, everyone is different, but here’s how I would answer his question.