No you probably haven't. The lessons I've learned as being a part of this community over the past three years have been immeasurable, and that comes from browsing this site daily. Here's a sample from the top of my head, and this doesn't even come close to the edge cases where I've encountered a specific problem in my day job and thought to myself "oh shit, I remember reading an article about this on HN, let me go search for it". This also applies to all the reading I've done for fun and in school.
- Importance of machine learning on web scale problems
- Stupid business models vs business models that actually seem to work
- Mistakes to avoid
Yes you learn by doing. But you learn just as much through discovery, and discovery only happens when you read a shit ton more than you have to. Discovery leads to idea generation. Idea generation leads to products. Creating products leads to learning.
- Drawing U.S choropleth thematic maps (flowing data)
- A/B testing, Adwords, SEO (patio11's blog)
- D3 framework
- VIM advice
- Product development and importance of design
- Being data driven
- Conversion optimization
- Importance of machine learning on web scale problems
- Stupid business models vs business models that actually seem to work
- Mistakes to avoid
Yes you learn by doing. But you learn just as much through discovery, and discovery only happens when you read a shit ton more than you have to. Discovery leads to idea generation. Idea generation leads to products. Creating products leads to learning.