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I truly wish that most communities of practice were more like what you describe. But, it's also naive to expect that experts won't criticize, sometimes even harshly. For instance, I am currently learning data science from the ground up (i.e. reading the fundamental mathematical literature) and doing it outside of a university program. It is disheartening to post a question, to say Cross Validated, and have a few critical commenters almost laugh the motivation out of me. So, I can emphasize. However, on the other hand, as a software practitioner, I am often on the other side of the fence. In this field in particular it seems like there are often amateurs who decide to jump in with an arrogant disrespect for the existing community knowledge and practices. I think it's because software is very cool now (like statistics, etc.). And, in software it's easy to find some code and libraries and 'wire them together' in crude ways. Note, I am not implying that this is the case here! I haven't even looked at the software nor read most of the comments. But, since I often see this happening, I know that such comments are expected. I'm only commenting on your perspective. I am not against autodidacts. In fact, I am one myself. And, I encourage it. But, all autodidacts should expect and embrace criticism from the community. It sucks to take it, because often commenters are often overly harsh and blunt. But, in defense of them, every community will be like this, to some degree. And, it's expected. Many of these practitioners have spent their life doing it, and they have some right to be critical, don't they? |