Hot Koehls

The more you know, the more you don’t know

This content is a little crusty, having been with me through 3 separate platform changes. Formatting may be rough, and I am slightly less stupid today than when I wrote it.
18 Nov 2008

There are only two types of coders

Across every language, platform, and experience level, you can summarize all programmers into just two groups: Those who are constantly learning, and those who think they know everything. The ones who learn are aware that they don’t know everything, and never hesitate to seek out new information when a new problem (or language, or platform) presents itself. They aren’t afraid to ask questions because asking is precisely what got them to their current level, and asking will propel them forward to greater levels of achievement. The ones who think they know everything never do, because (a) knowledge is infinite, and (b) programming knowledge is infinity-squared. This field just grows and changes at way too fast a pace; anyone passing themselves off as a go-to resource has obviously stopped learning, and thus is automatically behind. Thankfully, I think the vast majority of us land in the eager learner group. So when you do run across the rare know-it-all, do not hesitate to run the other way; you won’t have to go very far to find more like-minded colleagues.


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