[Sussex] ON the subject of newbiism

[Steve Dobson]

Dom / Geoff

On 03 April 2003 at 09:37 Geoff Teale wrote:
<snip>
> 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.

When it comes to kernel building I have learned from my mistakes.
Remember: "The man who doesn't make mistakes makes nothing."
Believe me I've got it wrong more times that I got it right.
I provided Nik with a config that worked on another Sony laptop,
mine.  I got luckily in that it also worked for Nik.

If I appear wise on this list then it is because I only speak
up when I have some experience in what is being talked about.
There are many threads in which my name does not appear.
I don't always get it right (as the archives show).

My advice to any newbies is to quote from your own experience.
This has two advantages:

  1). I provides an example of how to solve the problem.  While 
      this may not be the exact solution but it may prod them 
      in the right direction.

  2). If it works it can't be wrong.  While there may be an
      argument of a "better" way of doing it one can't argue
      with the fact that it works.

There are areas in which I'm a newbe.  JBoss is one of them.
I downloaded the app (some time back) but found the lack of
documentation and my lack of J2EE knowledge a problem.  I 
switched to using Sun's J2EE server for no other reason that
there was a tutorial I could follow.

Dom: Any change you could impair your JBoss knowledge, what
documentation you found on how to configure and use it?  There's
a newbie here that would like to know.

Steve