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