I have always been interested in computers, and would find myself hanging out with the Computer Science students instead of the Aviation Management or Business Management students I was a part of. At home and at work I have been largely self-teaching myself using computers starting with Excel and Access with VBA through ASP and SQL at work. Thankfully my current employer values education, and so I have been taking classes and not only learning the technology, but un-learning what I have been doing wrong over the years. At home, though, I have been teaching myself Linux, system administration, networking and the overall method of migrating our system from Windows to Linux. I am involved in the Danbury Area Computer Society (DACS.org) I have the opportunity to take what I've learned the hard way and hopefully help others.. I have been enjoying Open Source for a while now, and I am hoping to get a better understanding of the entire model and application.
Authored Comments
I have been impelenting a feature in our intranet that a co-worker developed and wrote up the documentation for (he admits it was thrown together and not meant for consumption).
It has not been easy to understand it all in part because there were so many assumptions he knew from building it initially, and how it was supposed to work. Neither did he put down the specific names of some of the variables and how they should be used.
I've hodge-podged my way through it and now that I have a grasp of where *I* fell short, I am trying to fill in the gaps of the documentation so the next time (and for the next person) the necessary tools will be spelled out.
Whenever I am writing documentation for anything (articles, tutorials, etc.) I keep one person in mind; my wife. I know her very well, and I know she is not into computers enough so I have to describe things very carefully (and visually). Sometimes as I look over what I am working on, I can hear her voice in my head and I listen to it. I use her as an image of who I am writing for to keep from taking anything for granted.
It doesn't always work, but it helps!
Our local hacerspace (<a href="http://www.cthackerspace.com/">CT Hackerspace</a>) is currently more focused on the technology, but I am seeing other hackerspaces becoming less technologically-orientated and more creativity-focused!
It seems there is a slowly growing renaissance of desperately needed creativitly in this day and age.
Funny thing is my wife, who is very not technological, should be considered a hacker in a number of other non-technical subjects. Maybe that's why I love her so ;)