I also get a lot of emails from people inquiring qhether I can build
something for them. Only in a few cases there is someone who tried to
understand the schematic and has a specific problem. Most of the times
the inquiries are of the form "Hey that is cool. I want something like
that, but with these specific modifications. Can you build this and that
for me?"
While I appreciate the positive feedback, and even more appreciate the
fact that electronics is still considered "cool", here is what worries
me: we live in a society where everything has to be available at all
times. Instant gratification. But this is not how science works.
Goalposts have to be set, and then you have to spend some time to reach
them. And it will be a piece of work. But when you get there, it is all
worth it. Other goalposts you will never reach, and that is fine, too.
I just have a problem with this "science is cool" mentality, because it
is often understood as "science is easy." Electronics kits with
everything pre-installed, in my opinion, should therefore be used with care.
Cheers
Jens
On 1/24/2018 2:45 AM, John Smout wrote:
On 24 Jan 2018, at 00:23, Dan Hollis <[email protected]> wrote:
Why is it perfectly ok for people to use libc, ncurses, pthread, pcre, opengl,
etc on linux but using an i2c library on arduino is somehow verboten?
I don’t think it is forbidden at all, but it is my observation that the bulk of
enquiries I get through my website are from empty vessels making the loudest
noise. Empty because they don’t have any personal knowledge of their own. They
don’t feel they have the time or inclination to learn either, but are quite
happy to get me to waste my time on their behalf if at all possible. Whatever
happened to the sheer joy of getting a blinky light to flash by one’s own
efforts?
I am sure there are millions of people happy to code up and document their
projects and annotate their libraries for the benefit of others and I am sure
many people are grateful to take and use what they can from them. All is well
in heaven and the gods can rest easy. I have no problem myself in sharing or
being generous.
Maybe I have been unlucky in my experience, but often when I help someone whom
I do not know it turns sour on me. As far as they are concerned I can gratify
their needs but rarely does anyone consider how it might impinge on my
available time and if I don’t give continued support to their projects people
have turned ugly and rude very quickly. The level of this is in inverse
proportion to people’s ability to help themselves. I fear that a grab-it-off
the-shelf-ready-made culture only encourages this attitude.
John S
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