> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 20:54:14 -0500 (CDT)
>
> Personally, I think it comes down to attitude. Some people have
> enough showing that it touches off some others now and then. I also
> think that a lot of you here don't understand the depth of knowledge
> of a system that people seriously in the unix world (whether as
> programmer or admin) consider to constitute being a wizard. Unlike
> the Windows user world, the next step up from novice isn't guru; there
> are *many* intermediate steps. Qmail isn't just for wizards, at all.
> An early journeyman admin should be able to figure out how to get it
> working relatively easily. However, a journeyman admin isn't just two
> days of reading away from being a complete novice; it's more like
> *months* of moderately serious attention.
>
> We won't talk about what it takes to be a master.
To illustrate your point, I've been a Unix Weenie now for just over a decade, and
I'm still not a wizard.
I'm not quite sure what I'd call myself, but it's not a wizard. It's more
than journeyman, but less than master. I've been teaching an 'Intro to Unix'
course for a few years now, and I no longer get surprised by system behavior
every time I teach the class, but it still happens about one out of four times.
...and of course, it happens several times a week when I'm trying to actually
use Unix as opposed to teaching it. I think w/o some humility, you'll die in
a Unix environment because it will chew you up and spit you out.
For instance the problem that I'm currently hoping will mysteriously go away
while I'm on vacation is where I can do a RedHat network installation off a
Linux2.0 NFS server, but can't do one off an otherwise identically configured
Linux2.2 NFS server. Why that causes the client to SEGV is a mystery.
Yes, this is off topic, but at least it isn't rude.
BTW, for any of you who are new to Unix, a book I recommend to all my Intro
students is "The UNIX-HATERS Handbook". It's a fun read. Along with some
good analysis of what's bad about Unix, you'll also get to read my expression
of frustrations as a newbie 10 years ago.
Chris
--
Chris Garrigues virCIO
+1 512 432 4046 4314 Avenue C O-
http://www.DeepEddy.Com/~cwg/ Austin, TX 78751-3709
+1 512 374 0500
My email address is an experiment in SPAM elimination. For an
explanation of what we're doing, see http://www.DeepEddy.Com/tms.html
Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft,
but they could get fired for relying on Microsoft.
PGP signature
