Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 22:46:05 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Dave Vollenweider" <metaridley@mchsi.com>, "FreeBSD Questions" <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: When Unix Stops Being Fun Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNCEGNEPAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20041002225028.05205e9a.metaridley@mchsi.com>
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> -----Original Message----- > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Dave > Vollenweider > Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2004 8:50 PM > To: FreeBSD Questions > Subject: When Unix Stops Being Fun > > > This has nothing to do with technical problems, but rather it's > more of a request for moral support. This may seem disjointed, > so bear with me. > > I've been using FreeBSD for over six months now, but I've been > using Unix-like operating systems for almost two years. I > started with Red Hat Linux back when Red Hat was making and > selling their "consumer-grade" version of Red Hat Linux, then > switched to Debian before going to FreeBSD last March. I now > also run NetBSD on one of my machines. > > Through all this, I've developed a passion for this type of OS, > seeing the elegance, performance, and sheer power of Unix. This > has affected me to the point of me changing my career path. > Before I got into these OSs, I wanted to get into radio. Now I'd > rather either be a system administrator or run my own consulting > business for entities that use these types of OSs. But herein > lies the problem I've been having lately: while searching around > for what I'd need to know to become a system administrator, I > came across this page: > http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/13/131727/462 A fair overview of things to learn. I would say though that by the time you learned all these 'prerequisites' you would have no need for the course of study. Now, keep in mind this - this ISN'T a list of things that you need to MEMORIZE. Knowing how to do things is different than memorizing a sequence of key clicks or mouse clicks to make something happen. Many people are out there that could memorize exactly how to do everything on this list - but because they don't really know how to do them, if I came along and made one little change in a script or a program, they would be screwed. By contrast someone who knows how to do all these things can walk in and sit down at a version of UNIX that they have never touched, never heard of, never seen, and within 3-4 hours not only be able to do all these things, they could write instructions for the people that need to memorize how to do them. As an analogy - there's lots of people that know how to pull into a service station and add air to their car tires. But out of all those people that have learned how to do this only a tenth of them know that tire pressure rises when the tire gets warmer, and of those people, only another tenth WOULD ASSUME THAT THIS WOULD BE THE CASE IF THEY THOUGHT ABOUT IT because they actually understand what gas pressure is. And if one of the people in that group had never added air in his life to a tire, and you told him to go do it, he would not only be able to go do it, he would be able to add exactly the correct amount of air needed for the tire. > and I'm > overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge I'd have to gain. > It took me almost two years to get to where I am today, and it > looks like I've barely scratched the surface of what I'd need to > know. I've been working with FreeBSD since version 1 and 386BSD before that. Over 10 years now. I even wrote a book on FreeBSD that was published in 2000 titled The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide. (it's out of print now but you can still buy it off Amazon) I'm still scratching the surface. You need to understand 2 things. First, the UNIX field is so vast that no one person can learn everything there is to know about it, EVER. Second, the amount of NEW information in the UNIX field that is being created every year cannot possibly be absorbed by one person in a year, even if all they did was learn new things. This is how all of the really serious jobs/fields operate, it's no different with a doctor, auto mechanic, lawyer, etc. This is why if your good in these fields you get paid the big bucks. > But now, I feel like instead of learning things on my own > for fun, I have to learn other things I don't really have a need > to learn for myself or that I want to, just so that I can apply > that to oth > er peoples' situations. Well, yes. That's why they call it "work" Nobody is going to pay you money to work on your own stuff. They only pay you to work on THEIR stuff. If 50% of the time their stuff is in the same universe as your stuff, your doing a damn sight better than most people. > The result is that lately learning > these OSs has become more of a chore than a fun hobby, and I'm > still intimidated by what I need to learn to get to where I want > to go. Your never going to get where you want to go - not if your any good at it, that is. Take it from me. I've done everything that you say you want to do. By the time that you get to where I am, your not going to be satisfied being a mere systems administrator or consultant, not if your worth spit. I certainly wasn't. In other words, life is a series of goals - and when you get close to one of them, the next one after that becomes more important than the one your right next to. At least, that is how it works for anyone with any real ambition. > It almost seems like it's not worth it. Well, let me tell you this. When I'm 85 years old - and I'm still intending to be working with UNIX then assuming it's still around - and looking back over my life I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I have learned and forgotten more things in any given year of my life than most people have learned in their entire lives. Your only given 1 life, 1 mind, 1 brain. It's yours to choose what to do with. If you want to piss it all away spending your evenings watching reruns of "The Simpsons" that's no skin off anyone's nose. But, when the day comes that you say goodbye to this old world, I think you will probably think you were a fool. > Now, being that I know there are some very experienced people on > this list, I'm betting that I'm not the only one that has > experienced this, that learning new things in Unix-like OSs > becomes more of a chore than something to do for fun. My > question is, what advice would you have for dealing with this? You have to make a choice. Your not going to be able to make it immediately, of course, you will end up having to feel your way forward. And you probably won't realize exactly the day you make this choice. There's a lot of people in the world that are contented to learn only a certain number of things, and once they have learned them all, they feel they have "arrived" and they don't want to learn anything more. Instead they just want to use what they have learned to do the same job, over and over for the rest of their lives. Of course, periodically the world changes and disrupts these people's lives and they have to learn something new. Usually, they successfully do it and get back to their happy little ruts. Occassionally they don't then spend the rest of their lives moaning over the "good old days" but never amount to a hill of beans afterwords. But, the world ain't run by those people. The people that really make the world go around are the people who get wiser and wiser and wiser and learn more and more and more until comparing them to an ordinary person of the first kind, is like comparing an ordinary person to an infant. And even among the wise, there are the wisest of the wise who are so far in advance of the wise that comparing them to the wise is like comparing one of the wise to an ordinary person. And even among the wisest of the wise there are the ultra wise that... well I think you get the picture. Every person who grows up eventually comes to a point in their lives, often somewhere in their mid to late 20's, where they figure this out and are faced with the fact that they need to choose which world to live in. It's just your turn to make this choice now. I cannot help you to make this choise or advise you how to do it. Maybe you want to go on a quest, maybe you want to write a book, whatever. But I can tell you that if you choose to be numbered among the wise, that some of the work may still be a chore, but when you do it, your going to feel satisfied, which I think is probably in the long run better than feeling "happy". And after a while your going to find that your wanting to feel satisfied more than your wanting to feel happy. However, if you choose to be numbered among the ordinary, the one thing I can tell you is you should give up FreeBSD. The reason is that you have now reached the point where you can no longer be an "ordinary" FreeBSD user because the door has opened a crack and you have been able to look through this crack and seen what it's Really Like behind the curtain. This is something that many ordinary FreeBSD users never do, and because they really don't really understand what the real UNIX universe really looks like, they can pretend that they are doing something Really Useful with FreeBSD. Poor, lucky people that they are, they can still be "happy" with FreeBSD. You, gave that up when you looked through the crack in the door. Ted Mittelstaedt
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