Dan Miser - Borrowed knowledge

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

I've long held that knowledge comes in one of 2 flavors: borrowed or earned. Let me illustrate by example.

If someone comes to me and says "How does Application.OnException work?", the odds of that person ever retaining that information and converting it into knowledge is rare. BOCTAOE. The exception would be people who are human sponges who can soak information in, and retain it, much like trivia experts. The information becomes "borrowed knowledge".

On the other hand, if someone takes the time to look at the online help and/or manuals, search through the source code to see how it works, searches online, and writes test cases to exercise the functionality, then they have a much better chance of retaining the information. In short, they have earned the knowledge. You can start by borrowing knowledge to figure out where to go/what to do in order to earn the knowledge, but the last step of truly obtaining "earned knowledge" falls on you.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 11:40:00 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 1:55:00 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Most people do most things based on borrowed knowledge. Earning most of the knowledge needed to operate in modren society is not practical. The more complex the task, the more likely it is that one ust rely on borrowed knowledge to accomplish it.

On the other hand, there do exist people that believe all knowledge is borrowed rather than earned. These people are easy to spot, because they inevitably retort, "but nobody ever told me that!" when things go awry.

Almost all religious belief is borrowed knowledge. Not that I think religion is a valid type of "knowledge", mind you.

Captain Jake

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 5:29:00 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Interesting observation Dan. I have to admit I am heavily the earned knowledge guy. I have many little test Delphi projects to exercise ideas. Once I have experienced the knowledge on a small scale, I integrate into the larger application.

My friend is mostly the borrowed information guy. He beats me in just about every trivia game. Grr... ;-)

Kyle A. Miller

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 8:56:00 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Dan --

Great post. I've always been a big believer in earned knowledge. The guys that fire up the IDE and "try it out" are the guys that really learn.

Jake --

Much of my religious belief is earned. You can't refute that. :-P

Nick Hodges

Thursday, February 02, 2006 11:47:00 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

> Much of my religious belief is earned.

Ah, herein lies a slippery slope. After all, if it is by grace that you are saved, then it is entirely borrowed, not earned, no?

Captain Jake

Friday, February 03, 2006 1:41:00 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Dan,

One of my definitions of wisdom is knowing what you don't know. The definition of great wisdom is knowing what you don't know, and where to find the knowledge.

As a one-man program shop, I have to depend on finding answers to questions, as adverse asking the guy at the next desk. Thus, I've evolved into a fairly decent programmer who STILL has to push F1 too frequently or look through my assembled tidbits in KnowledgeBase (the great code-keeper product from OsmoSys).

I could get depressed that more of the stuff I've encountered hasn't stuck completely in my noggin, or I could just rationalize that I'm in my second half-century and I shouldn't beat myself up over needing the help. At least I know where most of it is.

Enjoy the site, keep up the interesting dialog. GM

Gary M. Mugford

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