On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 09:26:52PM +0800, Pablo Manalastas wrote: > As I was helping my wife check out her purchases at Robinsons East > supermarket the bag boy saw my copy of the novel "American Gods" by > Neil Gaiman. "Maganda ho iyan", sabi niya. "Nabasa ko ho ang kopya ng > Tita ko, galing sa Italy." "Salamat", ang sagot ko."Simula pa lang > nag-eenjoy na ako." > > On our way out, my daughter, an avid reader herself, remarked that if > we can get more people to read, and to enjoy reading, then the Pinoy > might still amount to something. The trouble with us is that we do > not read. We enjoy watching soap operas on TV, or pirated DVDs, but > we do not read. > > How many of us, before posting a trivial question on this list, bother > to check out and read the FAQs and HOWTOs first? It is so much easier > to just post it here, where everyone is so generous with his talent, > so why bother to read? > > Let us make of ourselves a better nation. Let us read!
Thank you very much for this inspiring reminder, Doc Mana. If I may, I think one of the beauties of free software is that not only do we have the software and documentation, but we have full access to the source code as well. With a recently-acquired copy of the Zope Bible, I have recently been working on my first Zope product as a project for school. It is not easy being the only one not using PHP in class and being among few who use Zope locally. The #Zope channel on irc.freenode.net, while frequently populated and acceptably active, was not the best place to expect answers to every small little question I had as I trudged along. Zope documentation is pretty spread out, as well, despite the searcheability of the Zope website, availability of searchable archives on marc.free.net.ph and the powers of the almighty Google. Zope is great to work with, among other reasons, because the source code is not just available, it's always viewable in its current state. Python is an interpreted programming language and Zope is written in Python. Zope products used to extend the functionality of Zope are likewise written in Python and are all conveniently stored in a common directory tree. Empowered by the fundamentals of Zope product development that the Zope Bible offered, and by grep and the source code of Zope and all the Zope products I had installed, I frequently found myself finding answers to questions I had in the sources, before even looking online to find a HOWTO or an answered question on some mailing list. What's more, because I was reading code written by other presumably more experienced Python and Zope developers, I got small bits on "best practices" as well. All this on my own sweet time, without having to bother anybody else. Of course I couldn't always find the class I needed, or was plagued by a problem that I didn't have the expertise to figure out myself, and for these there were both IRC and email. Not just firing away immediately seems to have helped my improve my diagnosis and report, too. By searching the archives I found discussions about problems similar to mine, and built on their explanations to come up with more detailed symptom reports for the upstream author or mailing list. Just my take on the glories of free software, and the wonders of building on the expertise of a vast pool of more experienced developers and analysts. :) --> Jijo -- Federico Sevilla III : http://jijo.free.net.ph : When we speak of free Network Administrator : The Leather Collection, Inc. : software we refer to GnuPG Key ID : 0x93B746BE : freedom, not price. _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at http://marc.free.net.ph To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
