Improving oneself is a good frame for this. There are so many important and subtle and deep aspects of the craft to improve at. I want to work with people who recognize this and allocate their self-improvement efforts wisely.
Studying API trivia to show off in interviews is about as far off as it gets. So probably I’d choose the candidate who hadn’t done that. I’d rather risk a lazy coworker than one who fixates (even if competently) on the wrong problems. I’ve seen coworkers with that trait seriously drag down a team with low-signal nitpicking on others’ pull requests and designs, for example.
API knowledge is ideally a consequence of familiarity with the craft. Sort of like how vocabulary is a consequence of reading, writing, and interacting with well-read people. I’d rather have a conversation with someone who reads a moderate amount than with someone who decided to memorize the dictionary. The former knows fewer words, but I expect they’ll have more interesting things to say, even if none come across in the first 30 seconds.
Yes studying api trivia doesn't have much use. These stuff doesn't need to be memorized. Ideally you memorize stuff that important to you and likely useful for you.
Let's use your example of memorizing dictionary in some foreign language x. This person will be able to read faster and more efficiently without having to stuck on some unknown word and looking up dictionary every 2 minutes. At this state this person is just simply reading and focusing the brain on the content itself.
Likewise with memorizing programming stuff, the person can now just simply code and freeing the brain to just focus on the problem. Consequently more time to code moderate amount and ensure familiarity with the craft. I think this so called the 10x engineer that the author mentioned.
Studying API trivia to show off in interviews is about as far off as it gets. So probably I’d choose the candidate who hadn’t done that. I’d rather risk a lazy coworker than one who fixates (even if competently) on the wrong problems. I’ve seen coworkers with that trait seriously drag down a team with low-signal nitpicking on others’ pull requests and designs, for example.
API knowledge is ideally a consequence of familiarity with the craft. Sort of like how vocabulary is a consequence of reading, writing, and interacting with well-read people. I’d rather have a conversation with someone who reads a moderate amount than with someone who decided to memorize the dictionary. The former knows fewer words, but I expect they’ll have more interesting things to say, even if none come across in the first 30 seconds.