Re: PPP install (was:nobody is running find at too high a priority)
At 21:50 13/07/97 -0500, you wrote:
>The truly knowledgeable person shares his knowledge. Why should we not
>share our knowledge of how to configure ppp with new users? Do you want to
>force them to go through some sort of silly rite of passage?
No it`s not what I meant. I didn't seen it this way. When I first
installed Linux two weeks ago, I had troubles with my ISP. I called the
Tech support line, explained my problem. The guy said he knew what my
problem was but don't remember what to do to fix. He said he has a book at
home on Linux that explained that but he didn't remember the command. I
just said ok. And searched on Linux and Debian documentations that was
online. I finnally found what was my problem on my own. While I was
searching on the documantation, I found a lot of other things that was
interresting. If my ISP had gave me the answer when I called him, I would
be at the same level as I was before to call him. I had just do what he
told me to do. That's it that's all. And now? If another problem appears.
What will I do? Call my ISP begging for help? No. I learned how to fix my
problems on my own. By taking the time to read the man pages, and
documentations. If you give every answers to every problems that a new user
encounter, how will he learn? Why should he learn to read man pages? He
don't need to, he just have to call his ISP, ask how to do that, vomit the
command the ISP told him to do without even know what the command mean, and
that's it. "Give food to someone, and when he'll be hungry, he will always
ask you for food. Show him how to go fishing, and when he'll be hungry,
he'll go fishing on his own and will be self-sufficient." (Excuse my
english) Sure there are problems that are a lot more important than setting
up a ppp connection. But every new user, have to sit down, take some hours
to read some man pages and HOW-TOs, and just learn by themself how to set
up their PPP. They have to realize that Linux is not Win95. It's not
"Idiot-Proof". As a new user, I can tell you that setting up my ppp
connection was hard. Really. But now that I know, it was simple. And it is
now simple because I understood what I did to make it work. The point is
not to force new user to pass through silly rite of passage. It's just to
let them learn. Not without sharing our knowledge. As soon as I will have
more knowledge, I'll write some texts about things that hadn't been
documented before. Giving material to discover how to do things is not
(IMHO) like calling an ISP, asking how to do that, the ISP gives you the
command and hang up. You type in the command like a dumb and don't know
what you're doing, you just type in. I don't think an ISP will take the
time to explain everything in details on why do this, what this command is,
etc.
This is nothing more then my opinion.
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Imagination is more important then knowledge.
- Albert Einstein
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Louis-Philippe Alain: xenub@login.net
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