[META] How to be an expert

[Jon maddog Hall]

=>On Tue, June 13, 2006 8:46 am, Paul Lussier wrote:
=>
=>> So, let's see, 8hours/day * ~12 years of being a sysadmin = ~35,000
=>> hours.  So, by that statistic, I'm an expert.  Why is it then I still feel
=>> so ignorant about what I do ? :)

Two reasons:

When I started out in computers, all you had to know was how to punch cards
and program in FORTRAN.  There was no operating system as such.  What was
there was even weaker than DOS.  An "expert" in computers knew FORTRAN,
maybe an assembler language, and how to change the program drum on an IBM
Keypunch.  There were no "sysadmins".  There were "operators".

Then things began to get complicated.  We got time-sharing systems, which
required "accounts" and "logins" and "security".

We got networking ("What do you mean, TWO computers?").  After all, you used
one computer to "back up" the other, or for testing.  So now we needed
a "Network Admin".

We got data bases.   Now we needed a "Data Base Admin".

We had graphics.  Now we needed a Digital Graphics person.

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

And Paul, my experience with you tells me that you are "expert" in at least
two of the five hundred things we ask a "sysadmin" to do.....probably a lot
more.

So why do you feel so ignorant?  My students felt the same way on the week
before graduation.  "I don't know anything," they would say.  I asked them
when the last time they were able to discuss what they were studying
while at the dinner table without a blank look and "Please pass the bread"
from their parents.  Usually the blank looks came the second week of the two
year program, sometimes before.

So Paul you will always feel ignorant.  And you will always feel that there
are people who know more than you do about any particular subject.  If you did
not feel that way, you would not be an expert.  You would only think you were
an expert.

Warmest regards,

maddog
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
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