Experts

2007-05-28

People like simple truths, whether they’re correct or not. Any person entering a discussion between two camps will be drawn to one side or the other, based somewhat on their own experience, but due to herd mentality, will very likely tend to the side that’s advertised more aggressively. In the case of this argument, people coming from a Windows world to Linux will suddenly find themselves being treated as idiots because they don’t know much about CLIs. Since so many people they’re likely to meet in the Linux world argue for CLIs, herd mentality kicks in, and they’ll start repeating the arguments.

Because, let’s face it, making up your own mind not only is fiendishly hard – after all, you have to intimately understand both sides of the argument in order to make a good decision – it’s also the last thing you want when faced with something new. You just want to find out how to do stuff, and if everyone tells you that CLI is the way to go, you go the way of CLI. Simple truths are more attractive.

Fast forward a few years, and these former newbies have spent years training themselves to the use of the CLI, i.e. they’ve become very experienced. Now new people arrive to the Linux world and ask what the best way to do something might be, what will these earlier arrivals say? Of course, they’ll say to use the CLI – after all, that’s what they’ve learned, that’s what they managed to get along quite well with for the past several years, so there’s no doubt that the CLI is superiour. They’ll become experts, teaching what they know to be true, because they never had the chance to question their own beliefs.

If you add to the equation, that in order to become a respected member of any group, you’ll need approval from earlier arrivals (that’s how communities work), and you’ll see that it might not even take several years for people to repeat and defend what others have told them is best.

In conclusion, by all means, do ignore vocal proponents of something as trolls. I do. They most likely don’t have something to say that’s actually of value.

On the other hand, don’t do that too early. If you do, you’ll never get the chance to get to know both sides of an argument, and that’s the only way you can make up your own mind.