Brown trousers time :~

[Lyle - CosmicPerl.com]

Simon Wistow wrote:
> In general I agree with you but, that said, way back when i was first 
> starting out, I worked for a small company that barely had any money.
>   
Sounds familiar
> They couldn't afford to pay for anyone *really* experienced and I was 
> willing to work for less because I wanted experience. I very quickly got 
> out of my depth as our clients got bigger and bigger and was often 
> asking either stupid questions or questions like this on c.l.p.m or 
> here.
>
> In fact the OP gave me flashbacks since I had a click counting project 
> on a machine where I couldn't install CPAN modules that very quickly got 
> up to 1000s of clicks a minute IIRC.
>
> Thanks to people on this very list I ended up with a ~/cpan/ directory 
> and a wrapper script to cpan(1) that made installing new modules a 
> breeze and wrote a simple fork()ing web server in perl that spooled 
> clicks to a file and then offline processed them using, I believe, 
> Analog.
>
> My point being is that it's all too common to hit your limits by 
> accident (hell, I've *always* taken jobs deliberately to do that) and 
> that I'm particularly glad to the denizens of this august institution 
> who took me under their wings, gently guided me in the right direction, 
> fed me beer, patiently answered questions and then made me organise a 
> pub for them every month.
>   
I also deliberately take on projects that are beyond my current scope, 
that's how I push myself forward and learn about these things. There is 
nothing more boring than doing a project that is easily within your 
skills. It's akin to weight lifting and only lifting light weights and 
stopping before you've burnt out, then wondering why you aren't getting 
any gains or progress. To get real gains (in programming 
experience/knowledge, and physique) you need to be always pushing 
yourself forward, and doing MORE than you can currently. 110% baby yeah!

We all have to learn these things at some point, and it's places like 
this that most of us learn it.


Lyle