Casey Muratori does not know it all
Published: February 18, 2025
Sometimes, even a lowly developer like myself, actually knows something.
As many with me I suffer more or less from imposter syndrome. All outside signals tells me I’m wrong, but my heads voice still seems to win the war (I’m gunning for you though!!). Imposter syndrome seems to be extremely common in the software community, and I believe that one of the reasons for that is that it’s ridiculously easy to know about something that you don’t also intimately know. The mere act of reading a Stack Overflow question and its replies usually gives you a glimpse into a handful of new universes. There is just soooooo much that I don’t know! “How can I not feel like an imposter?!” my brain tells me.
While listening to Softeware Unscripted with Casey Muratori it dawned on me that Casey Muratori also does not know it all!
If you are Casey Muratori reading this; hello! Big fan, I’m honoured!
In Software Unscripted he talks about a bunch of stuff and rants about an equal amount of stuff. One thing that comes up is ORMs and query builders, he does not know what they are. He also barely seems to know what relational databases are, which for me (started my programming journey in PHP) are one of the most natural things on earth, like air. Next surprise was about Automatic Reference Counting (ARC), a way of doing automatic memory management that is a separate approach from a garbage collector. For me, having been in the iOS/watchOS world and having to deal with ObjC/Swift, this is something you just know about. Not Casey though.
I sit there, listening, and realise that this monster of an engineer is not an almighty God (shocker, right?). He’s a guy, extremely talented and good at what he does. But he does not know it all!
Then comes the real kicker, when Casey shows who’s the boss. He asks good questions!
Foundational knowledge
Imposter syndrome comes from shame, shame from fear that the surrounding people will see us for who we truly are. Shame of looking stupid, shame of not beeing good enough. One way to push that to it’s limit is to ask questions. You intentionally put yourself in the vulnerable position that is “I don’t know this thing, what’s it about?”. So how do you ask a question that does not make you look stupid? You must understand the fundamentals, what you already know.
Casey was not ashamed, he was eager to learn and understand what he didn’t know. Since he’s a master engineer he understands the limit of what he knows and can therefore sculpt the questions accordingly. He can ask precisely and also incorporate the answer into his existing knowledge, then follow up with another insightful question.
That is impressive!
I think this shows great confidence in your abilities and knowledge about your own knowledge, something that we should all strive for.
Conclusion
A boss I once had (let’s call him 2K) told me that I asked a lot of questions. At the time I didn’t understand why 2K said that and I didn’t undertand if he meant it in a positive or a negative way. I felt so stupid doing it, but I didn’t know another way to get the information and knowledge that I needed.
In retrospect I’ve understood that 2K gave me credit, and now I understand why. I should thank him.
It’s not easy though. Many times I’ve felt alone in not understanding a certain concept. Over time though, I’ve realised that there are usually a few more people with the same questions as me, but they still don’t ask the questions. They might have more imposter syndrome than me.
Don’t be afraid of asking a question. You might well be helping more people than yourself.