[Sussex] ON the suject of newbiism

[Geoff Teale]

Domunix wrote:
--------------
> You've come to the right place to learn.  I have prob. 
> learned more in the
> last 4 months here on this list than in the previous three 
> years. (Always
> seem to be a newbie here though :p )

I think what you call Newbie-hood is actually a question of attitude and
character.  It's a mental state of, "hey, I don't know everything I can
learn from people" rather than thinking "Hey, I know everything".  Everybody
on the list, hopefully has a little of both.  If you don't have the "I want
to learn" attitude then you won't get anything from the list (except maybe
an ego boost), and if you don't have a little confidence in what you do know
then you won't give anything back to the list.

I see in you (Dominique ;P) someone who is starting to be able to give
others the benefit of your experience, so less a newbie, more "differently
experienced".  

The discussion here is very interesting because we are all "differently
experienced".  Nik's day to day existence as a guru-sysadmin and all-round
snake-oil merchant is vastly different from my life as a developer.  

Nik, (as he is an obvious example) may come across as being very non-newbie,
this is partially because he has a lot of experience with Linux from a
sys-admin point of view, and partially because he's one of natures salesmen.
It is however clear, if you look at the archives of this list, that
sometimes Nik asks questions, and in the first meet he attended Steve Dobson
managed to resolve some kernel issues on his laptop for him (Steve of
course, knows everything ;) ).  This isn't because Nik's a newbie (he
isn't!) it's just because it was something he hadn't suceeded in before and
Steve had.  Ultimately all the things we do start out that way - we've never
done them - all that happens is that as we get more use from a platform the
more common tasks become second nature.  Right now I would wager that the
most experienced person on this list with regard to JBoss setup is infact
non-other than Dominic.

Having analysed Nik I think it's only fair that I turn the spotlight on me
(and allow others to do so).  I happen to like debate as a mechanism for
learning around non-technical or techno-religous matters, and I find the
best way to spur debate is to make bold black & white statements and see how
people react - I see this in Mark as well - it would be a mistake to believe
that I view things as quite as black & white as sometimes it may appear,
hopefully that comes through as we talk things through further.  

I talk a lot about political issues and about development issues (in which I
am broadly experienced), and I think I talk with a confidence bred from
experience and learning.  Am I newbie?  Sometimes I am, yes.  In the aspects
of running production grade Unix systems I certainly am a newbie.  I don't
know bash very well at all.  Sure, I know it well enough to get by, but a
lot of people on this list would find my bash skills frustraiting.  I also
am a complete failure at anything relating to setting up a mail server.  

Why is this the case?  Simply because I've never had to do these things in
earnest, day in day out.  I have however managed to get a solaris box to use
ppp over a dial-up line.  Doesn't sound that impressive, but I did that four
years ago, without the aid of anything like wvDial with no knowledge of how
to do it, and only Sun's deeply confusing documentation.  It took me every
evening for a week to achieve that.  I'm not proud of that, I needed to do
it, I was very knowledgeable and I took an unecessarily hard route.  If I'd
have been in a LUG then I'm sure it would have been achieved much more
quickly - but I wasn't, and suffering an excess of pride I wouldn't go and
ask the people I knew who would be able to help.  When I was thinking that
way I was my own worst enemy.  Fortunately I have learnt to swallow my pride
when necessary and just ask, it's an important aspect of this community we
have and not something to feel ashamed of.

Most geeks, IMHO are too keen to show off how clever they are, and not keen
enough to learn.  I include myself in that, but hopefully it's changing.

-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org

"And I hope that you die and your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket in the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead"
 - Bob Dylan, a pacifist :-)

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