In recent weeks I have occasionally dropped in on one of the OTN fora, read a few posts and perhaps added a response or three. Nothing like the level of activity of some the ACE inhabitants, but a token effort nonetheless. I was going to post abut this last week but other bloggers passed comment on fora so I though I would hold off in case I was thought to be yet another ‘me too’ person.
I could go down the route of rebuking the treating a forum as a cell phone and only using abbrev wrds 2 cnvey cmplx ideas in min keystrks; but then Tom Kyte does that sort of thing so much better than me. I do however struggle to find a meaning in the “this SQL does not work” question when the functional description of the problem is less intelligible (to me) than the broken query. I could criticise the arrogance of people that demand instant answers, but I might fall victim of a troll posting that exaggerates such traits. Or the people that ask questions that show so little understanding that one wonders why they work with computers at all. (See all that grumpiness kicking in.)
But people have to start out somewhere, learning is a very important part of living. And the passing on of skills and knowledge by the more mature of us is a duty we should all commit to. But there is the problem, how to get the time to share this information. My masters expect me to earn money for them or to facilitate junior staff to earn more, either way I have little free time in the office. If I quit and set up on my own I still would have little time as I would need to take on paid work to keep my kids in snowboards with built-in ipods. So, for me perhaps the best use of my (spare) time is to occasionally blog on things technical and leave the forum responses to others
Still, next week I’ll accept being old and be back to my normal, happy self
never accept that “being old” crap, Pete.
It was invented by folks who are jealous of our status!
By: Noons on May 6, 2007
at 11:44 pm