[wplug] Linux newbie

[Christopher DeMarco]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 10:46:15PM -0400, Brandon Kuczenski wrote:

> It's   a philosophical issue  to  me: a  giant optimization problem.
> "How do I  make this little  box do what I want?  WHAT IS  IT that I
> want, anyway?" And not enough people ask that second question.

Thank  you  for making that   explicit.  There's a  dearth of focussed
action among all these  young whippersnappers, and  it makes them  all
frenzied  keywalloping  noprogressniks.  I  have a  friend who  did an
internship in my project a year ago, and he constantly comes to me for
research help; his explanations of what he wants to do are filled with
implicit "MAGIC HAPPENS HERE"  bubbles.  I frequently point people  to
Rick    Moen's/ESR's    "How To    Ask    Questions  The   Smart  Way"
(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html) document, because
in addition  to the introduction to the  ecology and  sociology of the
wild hacker community, it   extolls the virtues of measured  thinking.
To paraphrase David Allen - "If you don't know where you're going, how
are you going to know when you arrive?"

-- 
% You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
Christopher DeMarco <cdemarco at fastmail.fm>          
PGP public key ID 0x2E76CF5C @ pgp.mit.edu
+6012 232 2106