On Dec 1, 2011, at 10:25 AM, John Tate wrote: > On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 7:20 PM, Scott McEachern <sc...@blackstaff.ca> wrote: > >> On 12/01/11 02:28, John Tate wrote: >> >>> I think I've found a bug in the OpenBSD crowd. They bug the hell out of me >>> and my little mistakes. >>> >>> I am not talking about people who actually have a solution, but I can't >>> seem to ask anything on this list without parrots coming along picking on >>> me. I think some people just hang out here because it's the most anal >>> bunch >>> of hackers ever, in recorded history. What are your experiences? >>> >> > I'm 24 years old. I was a Linux hacker since I was 13. I am a bit of a guru > and do my own Kerberos and such on an all BSD/Linux network. OpenBSD and > Debian Linux. I love OpenBSD, I'm a bit weird because I use bash. I can put > up with being made fun of. At 13 I didn't just start learning Linux I > started learning C++ as well. I failed to apprehend it properly at that > age, but at an older age I relearned it well. I am the guru sort of guy, I > know a hell of a lot but I'm still connecting it and in that sense still > learning.
I'm wary of 24-year-olds calling themselves gurus. I'm only 28, but for me, that's at least old enough to know that there's a lot I don't know. I think you'll find most of the "serious" people on this list also started programming in the language of their respective times about the same time you did. The problem is not the list or the operating system, it's your attitude. Yes, you find yourself getting picked on a lot, but at times it's largely because you've been sloppy. When I get picked on because I've been sloppy, I take it in stride and try to learn a lesson from it (at work, they apply a "Dave Riley Coefficient" of about 2.5 to any time estimates I make, for example, because I'm consistently bad at it; it's something I'm still working on, but there's no reason for me to take it personally). This is not the list to come to if you want hand-holding or soothing words to assure you that you're master of your domain. It's not an operating system for people who don't like digging into the guts of things, which is partly why it's not wildly popular. To that extent, there's an expectation that if you have a problem with NFS, and Google hasn't provided the instant answer you expected, you might dig around in the (very good) documentation to see how it really works instead of just asking for the quick answers. To wit: Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for the night. Set fire to a man, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett So if you get burned over and over because of the same goof (not RTFMing), perhaps it's time to stop complaining about being cold. - Dave
