[plug] Universities and the pecking order

[James Bromberger]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 10:36:48PM +0800, Ben Jensz wrote:
> Yes, I agree.  There is a somewhat base level of assumed knowledge which
> some people sort of expect everyone who posts on here to have.  But getting
> over the initial step of being able to comprehende some of the stuff can be
> difficult.

Which, I think you'll find, is helped by turning up to the PLUG meetings 
and talking to people. You'll find people actually like to be asked things. 
They like giving out answers. PLUG is not just a mailing list. Its an 
excuse to leech information off others and discuss your problems with 
peers. Anyone who feels this, come along to the next meeting. There's 
one on Monday at UCC at UWA. That's an informal problem solving session. 
Its a great opportunity to ask the questions tete-a-tete, and help you 
get over the "base knowledge". Some people laugh at the base knowledge 
thing; probably because they had to battle to get over it themselves 
5 - 10 years ago. Perhaps they lots lots of time/data/money because of 
it, and now they think you should "share the pain". Bwhaha. Or they 
just have scary memories of such times. Prod people, ask questions, 
and more than likely you'll be flooded with answers.

Your right that responses like "RTFM" are not helpful. But things like 
"RTFM man(1), foo(1), barr(5)" are: this means read the man page for 
"man" from section 1, foo in section 1, and barr in section 5. 
Don't know what a section is or what this means? Ask me on Monday at UCC!
(The answer is: the on-line traditional manual is divided into several 
sections, numbered 1 - 9 or so. The definiitions are in the manual page 
(man page) for "man", so type "man man" to see it).

Oh, and use "http://www.google.com/linux". 

> I first started tinkering with Linux a bit when I was 16... and 3 years
> later I still find a lot of documentation for stuff not very useful for some
> stuff, because it has a lot of assumed programming knowledge, which not
> everyone has.  Sure, the open source/linux community might be a bit of a
> friendly place once you've got a bit of assumed knowledge, but for people
> trying to break into the area, some people around the place can be not very
> helpful, off-putting and just plain rude in some instances.

And there are always areas that will remain like that, but as you glow 
brighter the darkness diminishes. I am still scared of kernel source. 
Others may care to admit this too. Sendmail.cf (the configuraiton 
file for the popular sendmail mail server appliction (MTA)) scares me. 
So dive in: read on-line, ask questions. Personally, I like buying O'Rieley 
books on these topics that have me stumped. Find someone who has done this, 
and trade them beers (or cidre, wine, or spirits) for borrowing time. ;)

> I also agree with the "status" thing around the place... some people on this
> list can be plain immature at times and start throwing egotistical bs
> around.  I don't think thats really the reason why a fair few people
> subscribe to this list, they subscribe to this list to have a bit of a chat
> about Linux related topics, possibly glean some information on topics they
> are unsure of and also ask for help on things which they just can't quite
> figure out.  Everyone has to start somewhere....

Indeed. So join in. We're on the road less travelled; you will be 
glad that you took it. ;)

> So to those people who like to start this stupid bickering and rude to
> so-called "newbies" (you know who you are), please take it elsewhere, as a
> lot of people don't want to hear about it on a public list.

We're all 'newbies' at something. Or some aspect of Linux. I'm not a 
Java programmer: my tinkering at it would classify me as a newbie. Don't 
think that 'newbie' == 'useless'. 

Anyway, I consider some others around me to be much much more proficient at 
this kind of thing than me. *blink @ [NTU]* Its a contrast thing in 
certain perspectives.


But trust me, on the questioning.


  James


With appologies to the authors of "The Road Less Travelled", Quenden Tarver, 
and anyone else I've plagerised/paraphrased in the above.
-- 
 James Bromberger <james_AT_rcpt.to> www.james.rcpt.to
 Australian Debian Conference: http://www.linux.org.au/conf/debiancon.html
 Remainder moved to http://www.james.rcpt.to/james/sig.html
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