Heh. I think the joke is that my company pays me 1 dollar a week to do Google searches, and 2000 dollars week to know which of the 100,000 results is worth following.
If you sit in IT people bubble then you might feel ashamed that you have to look up stuff all the time.
But technicians always had books like "mechanics guide" or "lookup tables" and they mostly knew which things to apply and where. Without training and experience you don't even know what to look for.
IT bubble people overestimate non IT people level of understanding, I see how "normal" people still struggle with basic text editing or using browser features that are obvious to me like "open link in a new tab". I am not talking here about my grandmother but even people in their 20's but just those non IT.
The same goes for knowing when to pay attention to Stack Overflow or GitHub and when not to. ;-)
In fact, it would probably be funnier if it were $1 to implement a new feature with an npm package and $1999 for knowing which npm package to use.
That said, usually when I search HN and stick to recent posts/comments within the last year, the advice often proves useful to some degree, as when experts share their direct experiences. For less technical concerns the same can be true of Reddit.
I took my semi truck to one of the company shops recently. There were some electrical problems that were getting progressively worse.
The technician thought, poked, checked, asked a colleague.
Finally he got out his phone, googled, and disconnected the batteries for about ten minutes. Then reconnected the batteries, and all was well.
I guess something needed to be put to death and reincarnated.
He laughed about it and told me how he fixed it. I laughed too and thanks him, but sometimes that's what you do, and you have to know enough to select the likely or possible out from the unlikely and implausible.
Buttons840|4 years ago
ozim|4 years ago
If you sit in IT people bubble then you might feel ashamed that you have to look up stuff all the time.
But technicians always had books like "mechanics guide" or "lookup tables" and they mostly knew which things to apply and where. Without training and experience you don't even know what to look for.
IT bubble people overestimate non IT people level of understanding, I see how "normal" people still struggle with basic text editing or using browser features that are obvious to me like "open link in a new tab". I am not talking here about my grandmother but even people in their 20's but just those non IT.
lstamour|4 years ago
The same goes for knowing when to pay attention to Stack Overflow or GitHub and when not to. ;-)
In fact, it would probably be funnier if it were $1 to implement a new feature with an npm package and $1999 for knowing which npm package to use.
That said, usually when I search HN and stick to recent posts/comments within the last year, the advice often proves useful to some degree, as when experts share their direct experiences. For less technical concerns the same can be true of Reddit.
a3n|4 years ago
The technician thought, poked, checked, asked a colleague.
Finally he got out his phone, googled, and disconnected the batteries for about ten minutes. Then reconnected the batteries, and all was well.
I guess something needed to be put to death and reincarnated.
He laughed about it and told me how he fixed it. I laughed too and thanks him, but sometimes that's what you do, and you have to know enough to select the likely or possible out from the unlikely and implausible.
unknown|4 years ago
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