Okay Ill Admit it ... I'm still learning ...!

[Derick Centeno]

> 
> From: Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us>
> Date: 2005/03/06 Sun PM 09:09:10 EST
> To: yellowdog-general at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
> Subject: Re: Okay Ill Admit it ... I'm still learning ...!
> 
> Thank you for writing a brilliant general-purpose message that itself
> belongs in the FAQ. 

Not a problem. Other participants have already written better discussions than 
I have for the YDL FAQ site in better detail and with more complete references 
and explanations.  I merely emphasized here, for this list, what I could 
remember as a "stream of conciousness" effort and left some things out.

Only problem is that while it seems to be aimed at
> people unfamiliar with RPM dependency hell, it expects that same audience
> to be able to extrapolate YDL4 info from a YDL3 FAQ page. 

Yep.  The same audience has a lot to get up to speed on.  I try to convey a 
sense of encouragement, support, and to an extent that such can be conveyed, a 
belief (stated or not) that anyone at any stage of learning Linux can focus and 
master the incredible amount of detail necessary to reach a fairly good level 
of competency...if the references and/or resources are provided as well for 
their review.  Some references and resources are dispersed in a manner which 
can be googled, but many valuable insights, references and resources already 
exist within the YDL FAQ pages.

My message was
> not general-purpose, but gave a specific command line to use in the
> specific situation that arose, where dependencies would be completely a
> non-issue because all the possible dependencies were already downloaded
> into the same directory and would be picked up by the rpm command
> together. Such is the limitation of getting help on a mailing list: The
> general-purpose stuff that everybody should see nobody sees, and the
> specific-situation stuff is open to Google for other people to mis-apply.

I'm surprised that you don't already know that nearly all of human history is 
a misapplication of knowledge or technology.  I believe an effective instructor 
has to direct the flow of knowledge such that a sense of challenging the reader 
or student to produce and support creativity in support of life and science is 
greater than the equally human and opposite tendency to engage in destruction 
and abuse.  Managing focussed and detailed attention isn't easy for anyone, 
especially at the greater paces expected as our understanding moves towards 
greater and greater complexity.  I cannot fault anyone who wishes to throw up 
their hands and head for a mountain, enter a monastery or enter other hermit 
like vocations.  But unlike other periods of history, this time complexity will 
not be going away.

You miss the point of the YDL FAQ site; the site is NOT addressing a particular 
version of YDL or Linux which is typed and tied to a version number.  Other 
sites are limited in that way...the YDL FAQ site is not.  The nature of what is 
covered and much of what is explained goes beyond those limits and can be used 
as resources again and again even though the version number progresses and 
changes.  Of course, this is merely my view, but readers are free to check for 
themselves regarding how useful the YDL FAQ site remains to them.

What one is able to extract is something dependent upon individual skills of 
course, but anyone involved in Linux at all, is already displaying a context of 
that stubborn human trait of being unwilling to be affected by the fear of 
complexity.  My approach is to challenge the reader to have and take on even 
more complexity.  

One of the participants in this current list, known as B1, used to sign off his 
messages with the saying, "The only cure for Linux...is more Linux and lots of 
it!"  or something along those lines.  I laughed when I first read it and 
realized it was a play on words which I had heard from a teacher I knew nearly 
30 years earlier but her reference was in regards to Mathematics!  And we all 
know how Linux is the poor scientist's server, ergo...