I really hate this thing where "not knowing stuff" is kind of the worst thing that someone can admit in tech-world. This is why so many people struggle to learn things, are afraid to ask questions,...
All these "everyone knows this!"-guys and their not very funny "jokes" are just so not useful or helpful. Especially in spaces that are MEANT for learning things!
@Jules agreed this can be applied outside the tech-world too. Asking questions is good !
@Jules as someone who is self taught, every day at my job is a nightmare for me because i never know what's "ok" to not know
@Jules Yes. Not that this helps, but it is their insecurity. As work gets more complex it actually becomes more important to have docs, comments, etc.
@Jules For sure. Reminds me of this cartoon via https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/846864384731365376 https://bne.social/media/3TBHKyVFxhHvUfg7n1A
@Jules I like the Recurse Center's guidance on this: https://www.recurse.com/manual
@Jules I am glad to hear someone say this. As long as I've been aware of this tendency, I've made a point of saying out loud, in so many words, "I don't know" when asked a question that I don't know the answer to. It's kind of amazing how taken aback people are by it.
@Jules I still don't understand how people can not like systemd. How exactly were these behemoths of bash script in /etc/init.d/ crafted? How can the pure existence of systemd unit files not be justification enough?
@Jules See that's why I like the CCC. You can ask everyone and they'll be happy to talk about what they know for hours and explain it to you in their best manner. For me all the congresses are like a big pool of knowledge I can dive trough.
@Jules ignore the "everyone know this" people. nobody knows what they're doing. if you can find someone who instead says "oh well let me show you how cool this is" and then is excited that they can help someone learn, those are the people you can learn from.
@Jules Always play dumb and don't care. When you inevitably teach someone a new thing, it flips the script.
@Jules i love making assholes uncomfortable. i'm an autistic trans woman, so this isnt hard to do.
any time i encounter a thing i dont know i will just boldly declare it and ask for help. usually this works out fine.
but sometimes i get one of those assholes and i say "wow, youre really gonna shit on me for not knowing something? you have the opportunity to see someone understand/discover/see something for the first time and you spend that being an asshole instead?"
it works
@PunkFairyAlex @Jules This is awesome and you are awesome. Your point at the end—that drives your confrontation of the assholes in question—is such a good one, well put.
@Jules I started out as a boot camper, and they emphasized the importance of asking questions and being open about being confused/not understanding things.
Working professionally in the field, I've never stopped being open about that stuff and try to encourage others to do the same. Communication is key and everyone benefits from knowledge that might not have been shared if the question was never asked.
Anyone who snarks in reply is a horse's ass! And it comes off as insecure.
@Jules One of the reasons why I like being in research: we know that we don't know.
@Jules You think I don't know that?