On 3/27/21 12:20, Cynthia Revström via NANOG wrote:
(not directed at anyone specifically)
I think for the people who are concerned about the younger generations
not having this knowledge, think of how to fix it rather than just
giving up on the younger generation.
Sure not everyone will be interested in historical context, and
certainly not in every topic, but some are.
I think connecting with the younger generations in order to answer
these questions is a much better approach than blaming them for not
wanting to use mailing lists or whatever.
In Africa, at least, there is still quite a lot of interest from many
youth to get into the nuts & bolts of how to build large scale Internet
networks. What needs to evolve is how we support their training, as the
way it was done before is coming under pressure due to the disappearance
of traditional hands-on labs, the older generation of teachers slowing
down in life, the pressure from industry to build and operate networks
with a GUI, the pressure from software and automation confusing network
engineers about whether they need to be great at IS-IS or Python, e.t.c.
In the past year, we've found ways to virtualize the workshops and the
labs, but also to virtualize the entire workshop over several days, and
the signs are looking good for the evolution of how knowledge is
transferred, in that respect.
Many thanks to the good folk at the NSRC for making stuff like this
possible, for various regions around the world, especially the
developing ones.
Mark.