April 29: Impatience & Expertise

Work life for me here in Nerdvana is a lot faster than it was back home. I've found that in adjusting myself to the new pace, I'm less and less tolerant of minor slowdowns. I don't mean to say that I'm becoming one of those type-a impatient types, just that I'm aware of the fact that whatever I'm working on is taking me significantly longer because, say, my Internet connection sucks and it's making my SSH connections all laggy. These momentary delays, usually spent staring at a progress bar hovering near 100%, provide a good time for reflection on what I could do to improve the process. It's important to separate things into things I can improve and things I can't, and to not get too annoyed by the things outside of my sphere of influence.

It's on that note that I've decided to finally bite the bullet and learn a real text editor, in this case xemacs. I've been fighting with nano, the only Unix-y text editor I can use whatsoever, since I got here. It just doesn't work well for me most of the time — the screen gets corrupted, key bindings are wonky, all kinds of stuff. Plus, it's a bit embarrassing to be an Expert Computer Nerd(tm) who doesn't know Vi(m) or (x)emacs. I am strongly annoyed by emacs' crazy terminology, which is completely different from the rest of computerdom, but recognize that it is outside of my sphere of influence, and therefore not worth getting upset about.

As I flipped through the emacs manual at work, I sort of chuckled to myself about the fact that I was finally learn emacs because I was impatient. Who would've thought that being impatient would be what drove me to start scaling a famously daunting learning curve? Based on my nerdly readings, I've noticed that two of the most obvious personality traits of nerds (I'm thinking of famous ones like Linus Torvalds or Larry Wall) are laziness and impatience. These two combine to make people want to have powerful tools they can master. A long learning curve isn't a problem if it saves effort in the long run — nerds don't mind those sorts of value propositions. It's okay if it takes you months to become proficient at emacs if it lets you work twice as fast. Impatience breeds expertise.

Hopefully.

Written on 29 April 2008 & posted at 10:32 PM. Permalink.

Comments

  • Victoria@Home

    at 30 April 2008 at 04:26 AM

    Well good luck in your learning! =D

    And I never got the job so I am reconsidering visiting but I don't know if Mum will let me! =(

  • KEddy@home

    at 30 April 2008 at 05:18 AM

    Man, I am dieing over here... I got a cold or something. But its got me down for the count. I took the last half of work off yesterday and I think I am taking today off too. I feel like a sack of poop.

  • Angie@Valley

    at 30 April 2008 at 05:36 AM

    I was sick last week with some awful bug. Ryan, are you still going to San Fran?

  • Angie@Work

    at 30 April 2008 at 05:36 AM

    Victoria: If you were allowed, are you thinking Halifax or San Fran? Mark: Too bad this interest in efficiency didn't hit you in University!

  • Victoria@Home

    at 30 April 2008 at 05:40 AM

    I was thinknig about both. I wasn't really sure! What do you think?

  • Dan

    at 30 April 2008 at 05:46 AM

    I've actually began learning VI / VIM :)

  • Steve

    at 30 April 2008 at 10:24 AM

    Oh yeah well I learned 12V/DC.... I just felt left out.

  • Mark@Work

    at 30 April 2008 at 04:20 PM

    I looked into learning vim (points to it for having a nicer-looking Mac port) but this seems to be an emacs shop. Plus, I think modes are stupid. :)

  • Keddy@home still sick.

    at 01 May 2008 at 04:53 AM

    I want to go... but I dont think I can in June. July I have some things planned and August the same deal... I am gonna look at my schedule and see where there is some free time, but if I am going I dont want to go for just a weekend... I want a week of Cali Madness!

  • AL

    at 01 May 2008 at 05:44 AM

    man PICO is the bomb!

  • Steve

    at 01 May 2008 at 07:47 AM

    A week? You'll break SF.

  • Keddy getting ready for work

    at 01 May 2008 at 09:27 AM

    I know... thats what would make it awesome!!! me breaking SF!!! FTW!

  • Mark@Work

    at 01 May 2008 at 06:18 PM

    I think I'll be home in September.

  • Keddy singing!

    at 01 May 2008 at 07:52 PM

    Wake me up, when September ends...

  • Steve

    at 02 May 2008 at 05:31 AM

    Fuck you can sleep.

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