On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 10:07:57PM +0200, Georg Baum wrote: > Finally, I believe that your impression that everybody else is a > professional software developer, that LyX development is only for those, and > that you are severly limited by not being one, is a bit exaggerating this > difference. When I started LyX development, I had almost no experience with > C++ and software development. I learned a lot of what I know today on this > list, and I am very thankful for that. Today, I am one of the more > experienced guys and can give something back. IMHO it is a big plus of this > list that you can ask almost any question, and you will get a useful answer. > I firmly believe that you can do a lot of useful stuff without being a full- > time software developer. For the things you do not understand, you always > have the option to learn how they work in detail, or simply to use a recipe > that you can execute without knowing much about the internal workings, and > for some areas which do indeed require some deep knowledge you can simply > remember not to touch them (e.g. src/support/weighted_btree.h would be a > file I would not touch without some good computer science background).
Well written! I agree that it is important to ask. It is easy to think that you might not have enough time to learn about a certain topic. I think it is the opposite though: you don't have enough time *not* to learn it well enough (e.g. Git). I actually enjoy not being as experienced of a developer as others around here--it is an opportunity to learn. And I've found the other developers extremely generous and patient with their explanations to me. Scott
