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by JeremyMorgan 4180 days ago
It seems like common sense, but it's so difficult to do sometimes. I agree completely.

When I first started learning Linux for example, I didn't just learn the commands I needed to do certain things, I tackled everything. I spent months and months learning everything I could about it. I bought a giant Linux book and went from cover to cover. I learned about things I would never use (and probably still haven't).

I pushed myself to recompile the kernel even though I didn't need to. Then I did it probably 50 more times that month. No joke. Crashed my system. Rebuilt it. Rinse, repeat.

After laying down that foundation in the 90s, I've kept up on it but Linux is so very "easy" for me. Setting things up and getting work done is extremely intuitive, far more so than it is in Windows or OSX. So when people ask me why I prefer it I tell them it's a personal preference because it's so easy for me, and I even I forget that foundation I laid.

I have taken on other pursuits the same way, such as development but I notice any technology that I half ass learn just to get stuff done.. is hard. Sometimes I wish I had enough time in my adult life to build such a strong foundation in something like.. JavaScript for example. And I bet if I added up the time I spent struggling in the beginning I would have been able to do just that.

But yeah, long story short this is absolutely the best way to learn something. Build that trunk.

1 comments

You may find that, for some popular software technologies now, so far no one has organized the material into a solid tree with a trunk and a few large branches that quickly provide good paths to any of the leaves. Instead you may be looking at a noxious vine or even a patch of jungle with some poisonous plants and reptiles.
I have definitely noticed this, which is part of the reason I haven't "dug deep" with them, and instead learn enough of it to get a job done.
It takes good effort to organize a significant body of knowledge into a tree with a few big, short branches.