On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 05:12:32PM -0800, deFreese, Barry wrote: > For example. I see a lot of questions on debian-user about configuring IP > addresses, so I thought, hey I'll write a quick Python app to configure > /etc/interfaces and /etc/resolv.conf. Of course doing an apt search > produces etherconf, linuxconf, and several other utilities for configuring > interfaces. Would you write the app anyway just for the experience?? How > did you get from the middle ground to guru-dom?? Or is the answer that if I > need to ask, I will never be a hacker!!?? :-) I think you made two mistakes, Barry: The first is looking to other people for problems to be solved. You'll never find the inspiration in solving problems that don't affect you. Since you don't feel the itch, you don't get much satisfaction from the scratch. Speaking for myself, I picked up a programming manual for my first computer and started reading; well before I was finished, I had two dozen ideas for programs to write. Those programs and their spinoffs kept me busy for a couple of years, and I loved it. Second, when an itch hits you, don't research to see if someone has already solved the problem. Solve it yourself. Mathematical texts aren't filled with answers right beside the problems; they teach you by making you work out the answers yourself. Some unsolicited advice: Don't limit yourself to one or two (or even three!) programming language. If you're not immersing yourself in a new language at least every six months, then you're stagnating. Learning the idioms of a few dozen languages will teach you to think of problems in completely different ways. Go use Scheme for a year, and when you come back, you'll be ten times better at programming in Python than you are now. Creating a linux distribution is a group activity, but creating art is fundamentally a solitary, private experience. Turn off your internet connection; sit in a dark room, with nothing but the glow of a monitor, the warmth and hum of your computer, and the ideas will flow: Sometimes a trickle, sometimes a torrent. We wish you luck. - chad
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