I'm new to "nix's and *BSD's, yet I have chosen NetBSD as the core of a
project that I'm working on.  After coming from the land of WinCE where
there is copious information for developers at "ALL" skill levels, I find it
rather disconcerting that some of the recent NetBSD message traffic has an
tone of arrogance to it.

While I can understand the frustration that some might feel about newbie's,
I personally would have withheld the usage of the phrases "come to pretend"
or "just parroting the solutions".

Aren't most of the people on this and similar lists, people who by
definition are seeking a greater understanding of how to things work?

Is one persons vehicle for learning things inherently better than another's?
There is a saying that states "As you see the light, walk there in"  And it
certainly can apply to the course that a person may take as they learn new
things.

CLN

-----------------------------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Thor Lancelot Simon [mailto:tls@rek.tjls.com]
> Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2006 10:06 AM
> To: Magnus Eriksson
> Cc: netbsd-users@netbsd.org
> Subject: Re: How-tos (Re: querying the console type?)
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 21, 2006 at 06:19:08PM +0200, Magnus Eriksson wrote:
> >
> > Ok, pet peeve.  Rant.  Not directed to anyone in particular; especially
> > not TLS, who took the time to explain things to someone who asked.
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 21 Oct 2006, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> >
> > >I tend to think that "How-Tos" are a very bad thing: they
> encourage people
> > >to do complex tasks, with potentially serious consequences, without the
> > >background knowledge they would have if they actually looked
> at the primary
> > >documentation for long enough to figure it out.  Then if anything goes
> > >wrong, they're utterly stuck.  The NetBSD Guide seems somewhat better.
> >
> >   As someone who has actually had to learn things from scratch
> (as opposed
> > to being born with perfect knowledge), I disagree.
>
> Oddly enough, I was not born with perfect knowledge either.
>
> I am very, very glad that I did not "learn" anything (more
> properly, I would
> say, come to pretend that I "knew" various things I didn't
> understand at all)
> from "HowTo" files.
>
> Actually doing the work to figure out how complex things work, from
> correct explanations of more basic things, is a very important part of
> the learning process.  If one doesn't do it, one really never acquires
> the ability to solve _new_ problems, instead of just parroting the
> solutions to problems others have solved before.
>
> Thor
>
>