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How can you be passionate about something and not know anything about it?

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<< P.S.: Britney Spears is so young, so I would not dare oblige her to know a man generations ahead of her. What's up with that? What is she to have learned from him? What does knowing who he is do to her life rather than a general history of that era? >>



Btw, Yoko Ono is not a man... 🙂

I'm 21, Britney is 20. I, and everyone I could ask at the time, know who Yoko Ono is. But, this wasn't an argument about Britney Spears, that issue was just the catalyst for further discussion.
 


<< Are you saying that there are no C experts in China, India, and other non-European countries?

How arrogant is this?

You are conflating your Americanized C culture with some ideal, global C culture. This is offensive to me.

Being a C expert means you program in C very well, efficiently, etc. It does NOT mean that you know of American or European people who happened to write C documentation. It does NOT mean that you know of stupid little idioms that American C programmers use. >>



Are you myopic?!?

I said, yet again, that REGARDLESS of language, cultural background, country, race, shoe size, number of fingers, number of toes, eye color, weight, whatever, there will ALWAYS be esoteric knowledge only acknowledged by pundits.

Did I cover all bases that time? Look at the product of C code from Russian programmers and you'll see the same idioms as those present in American produced C code. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny!
 


<< Look at the product of C code from Russian programmers and you'll see the same idioms as those present in American produced C code. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny! >>



I thought that when you said idioms, you meant idioms, as in "There is more than one way to do it." for Perl.

It appears that when you say idioms, you mean design patterns. That, I am more likely to agree with. However, the fact remains that good design patterns are common among good programmers, NOT necessarily because they all read the same American or European documentation, but rather because good design patterns are often independently discovered by multiple smart people in multiple regions at around the same time. This is also the case with mathematical research.
 
Descartes,

Your computer programming examples are valid in my opinion, but I don't believe they apply to all intellectual achievements, much less artistic ones.

As a simple counter-example, I'm pretty sure all the people who are addicted (call it passionate if you will) to Nintendo games don't realize the franchise is built upon one legendary game designer who created Mario, Zelda, and other unique classics.

I don't know much about music, but since when is Yoko Ono required knowledge?

To take your examples one step further, I suspect there are many "intense" developers out there who don't know that Donald Knuth is a CS god, or the contributions of Doug Englebart made to the GUI. Or that Vannever Bush invented the concept of hyperlinking many decades ago.

Part of the reason is that guys like Knuth and E.F. Codd were researchers, and most people just can't read their material.

I think that the names you read off just illustrate that in computer science/programming, one determined and intelligent individual can accomplish more in a few years than scores of common coders could do in a lifetime.

Fred Brooks (author of The Mythical Man Month) estimated that a good software developer is 10 times more productive than the average one. I agree with him, but suspect the ratio is much higher (maybe by an order of magnitude).

Finally, to disagree with some of the dissenters to your examples, the reasons these aren't just popular books is because they are literally amongst the best resources available. Personally, I call K&R the C Bible. Descartes isn't talking about the Best Sellers list, guys.
 


<< Finally, to disagree with some of the dissenters to your examples, the reasons these aren't just popular books is because they are literally amongst the best resources available. >>



Key word being "among".

It is horribly arrogant to assume that the best programming documentation must necessarily be produced by Americans, and that equally good local documentation cannot exist in China, India, Japan, or other countries.
 
yellowplastic,

Get off your Euro-centric soapbox argument already. That wasn't the original point/intent of Descarte's argument. You can disagree about his hypothesis, but this isn't about USA vs. the world.

K&R has been translated to at least a dozen languages. And although I agree you can learn a language without reading about if from the horse's mouth, I challenge you to find a better 250 pages on the C language than K&R.

If it's not originally an English book, find us an English translation and we can judge it for ourselves.
 


<< yellowplastic,

Get off your Euro-centric soapbox argument already. That wasn't the original point/intent of Descarte's argument. You can disagree about his hypothesis, but this isn't about USA vs. the world. >>



Yessir, yes it is. Descartes is making the claim that an Americanized or Eurocentric understanding of a discipline is essential for expertise in that discipline. I am highly offended by this racist remark and I strongly disagree.
 


<<

<< yellowplastic,

Get off your Euro-centric soapbox argument already. That wasn't the original point/intent of Descarte's argument. You can disagree about his hypothesis, but this isn't about USA vs. the world. >>



Yessir, yes it is. Descartes is making the claim that an Americanized or Eurocentric understanding of a discipline is essential for expertise in that discipline. I am highly offended by this racist remark and I strongly disagree. >>



How the f'ck is that racist?
 


<<

<<

<< yellowplastic,

Get off your Euro-centric soapbox argument already. That wasn't the original point/intent of Descarte's argument. You can disagree about his hypothesis, but this isn't about USA vs. the world. >>



Yessir, yes it is. Descartes is making the claim that an Americanized or Eurocentric understanding of a discipline is essential for expertise in that discipline. I am highly offended by this racist remark and I strongly disagree. >>



How the f'ck is that racist? >>



It implies white supremacy, culturally and technologically.
 
I'm not going to bother debating w/ yellowplastic, because he misses the original intent completely.

He seems to think the argument is about whether or not some white people should be considered preeminent within computer programming, rather than the original question which other people seem to understand.

I'm not saying yellowplastic is a raving lunatic, just that he's completely debating the wrong issue here.

Descartes is a coder, and chose to use examples from his line of work. I strongly feel that anybody with a similar software background can easily see why he chose those examples.

What about the Yoko Ono example that started everything? Was Descartes trying to disenfranchise any races from representing luminaries in music?
 


<< I strongly feel that anybody with a similar software background can easily see why he chose those examples. >>



I too am a coder, and I don't see why anybody would have to learn programming from Eurocentric documentation in order to be a good programmer.

Descartes should apologize for his racist remarks.
 
Descartes, I stand corrected with your latter post.

However, on the actual subject matter of "passion", it seems to me you really don't want a response and are set on your ways. To define how you understood the word or in what context you used it matters a lot otherwise you mislead your audience.

But accepting your definition, in no way would Britney Spears therefore be classified as passionate. According to your definition, it automatically obliges anyone who is passionate about soemthing to be knowledgeable about something. It seems to me that is simply your conditon not something that can be proven to be some natural law/universal law. You are the one who obliges one who claims to be passionate to have full knowledge. And by your condition, it is automatic that if one is not knowledgeable on something, then one is not passionate about it--even if one claims to be. The contrapositive of that is that if one is passionate about something then one is knowledgeable about.

I hope this makes clearer where your argument takes us. It is simply stagnant and dependent upon who meets your conditional statement. It boils down to your definition and opinion. As far as I'm concerned, one who is passionate about something need not be knowledgeable. Knowledge simply gives them the authority to defend or argue their positions. All it takes is a counterexample to your claim: I can find you scientists nad mathematicians who are the least passionate about what they do but acquire knowledge . . . oh or perhaps by your definition one who acquires that much knowledge must have been passionate about it to have obtained it? Which should prevail?
 
hmm...I can see a point either way. I, personally, do a lot of network/internet programming in Java and Perl and I do know a good many of the references of which Descartes speaks of.

I own a copy of the camel book, have heard OF Wall and know who Gosling is. I know of other like Bush and Lee as far as internet tech goes, but I can honestly say that the knowledge of these things is fairly unrelated to my interest. Then again, you could argue that my "passion" for the field is different than that of most people. I like the things I create. Heck, if you REALLY stretched it, you could prolly call me an artist of sorts. I take an inordinate amount of pride in my work. and I like making disparate strands of code and threads to the cpu make something. I think Descartes is arguing that in the various professions, certain phrases get thrown around often and if you're there, you tend to pick them up. Very True.

But now take yellowplastic's argument...Not everyone works in the same groups and under the same understandings. I mean, if I were to make a reference to the CLRS book, just about every programmer out of college that I've spoken with knows what I'm talking aboubt(it's fundamenta), but I don't imagine everyone in the programming world does...but I'll bet dollars to dimes that they could all bubblesort just as well as the next fellow. I'm sure there's an equivalent in China that, if they were to make a comment about, would pass over us...yet pesos to pounds says we can all build heaps. These are fundamentals and basics....but I'm positive it'd apply in other topics as well. Sure, people interested and passionate about a field often know a lot about their field....it's just that what they know doesn't necessarily match. I mean, I learned the fundamentals of C from a man named Strohlmann....should I expect you all to know who I'm talking about? Am I required to share my professor's knowledge and experiences? Not possible. That's why we're all different.

I got up to here before I noticed it had degraded into a primal, racial insult throwing, hootenanny/shindig without anyone offering anyone else a bone. Anyone else think the same way?
 
I think you're off-base.
I am not at all passionate about PERL yet I know who Wall is and I have used the camel book.
I consider myself to be "passionate" about Java, but in 4 years of college in which just about everything I was taught was based around Java, I never once heard the name James Gosling. I really have little concern with the name of the person who helped develop the language.

I don't really see why Britney Spears should have to know who Yoko Ono was in order to consider herself "passionate" about music.

I guess my point is this:
Passion is an emotion which you feel within you. It is not related to some degree of knowledge.
I consider myself passionate about aquariums and fishkeeping, yet I know little of the history of it. I know enough of the science and biology to make sure that my fish stay alive and healthy. My passion lies in the art of playing "microcosmic god" and forging from nothing within a glass box all the parts of a completely self-sufficient ecosystem.
I could care less about who built the first glass fish tank or who invented the active-carbon filter.

I consider myself passionate about kayak-surfing. I couldn't tell you the name of any other kayak surfers in the world, professional or otherwise, except Tim Nimier and I only know his name because it is written on the side of my boat. Yet all summer long I kayak 6 hours a day. I love to do it to no end.

I'm passionate about playing the saxophone. I often play jazz. I know nothing of chords and scales when I improvise. I know the key and that's it. Yet I seem to play great solos...others who know all of the scales and chords forwards and backwards seem to flounder when they go to improvise.
How can this be? Knowledge does not imply passion, nor vice versa.

It's impossible to claim someone is passionate or not about something just because they don't waste their energy on "book knowledge." Especially when exactly what yo8u should know is so subjective. Perhaps someone learned PERL without the camel book. Perhaps they're not interested in history.
You say there are certain things that people [pundits] should know, but who gets to decide what those certain things are?

Harry Chapin wrote a song called "Mr. Tanner" about a cleaner in Dayton OH who would sing as he worked. Everyone convinced him to go to NYC and try to make it big as a singer. He was ripped up by the critics and came home in disgrace, but told no one what happened, he just stopped singing when others were around.
"Music was his life; it was not his livelihood,
and it made him feel so happy; it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart, he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole."

That's what it means to be passionate about something.

 


<< I too am a coder, and I don't see why anybody would have to learn programming from Eurocentric documentation in order to be a good programmer.

Descartes should apologize for his racist remarks. >>



It seems obvious to me that you're simply being antagonistic. No need for that.

I acknowledge the anomalies in what I've tried to convey, but it seems many in this thread understood. It just seemed to me, through my experience and communication with others, that when learning any given subject, you often go through the same process as the next person who learns the same (thus my ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny reference). I always thought it was interesting to work with a new developer and find that although we had never spoken prior, we share so many of the same thoughts and interests. We've read many of the same books, know most of the same people, went through the same process of learning, etc.. We've run into the same issues in our projects, often implemented the same work arounds (these are the idioms I referred to), etc. Some may call it a "hack" that's easily acknowledged from a pundit, and it needs no further explanation. It's not that we're all playing the lemming, nor is there a standard to follow, it just seems to be a common evolutionary process that developers go through in their transition from journeyman to master.
 
Sorry, but IMHO, those passionate about music would have purposely blocked out any and all memory of Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band and the craptacular "music" they produced. Given a few more years and a bit of therapy, hopefully i'll be able to "forget" about Hanson's "Mmm-bop" and plenty of other recent top 40 stuff the same way i had repressed the memory of Yoko, until you brought her back up anyway :|
 


<< I think you're off-base.
I am not at all passionate about PERL yet I know who Wall is and I have used the camel book.
I consider myself to be "passionate" about Java, but in 4 years of college in which just about everything I was taught was based around Java, I never once heard the name James Gosling. I really have little concern with the name of the person who helped develop the language.

I don't really see why Britney Spears should have to know who Yoko Ono was in order to consider herself "passionate" about music.

I guess my point is this:
Passion is an emotion which you feel within you. It is not related to some degree of knowledge.
I consider myself passionate about aquariums and fishkeeping, yet I know little of the history of it. I know enough of the science and biology to make sure that my fish stay alive and healthy. My passion lies in the art of playing "microcosmic god" and forging from nothing within a glass box all the parts of a completely self-sufficient ecosystem.
I could care less about who built the first glass fish tank or who invented the active-carbon filter.

I consider myself passionate about kayak-surfing. I couldn't tell you the name of any other kayak surfers in the world, professional or otherwise, except Tim Nimier and I only know his name because it is written on the side of my boat. Yet all summer long I kayak 6 hours a day. I love to do it to no end.

I'm passionate about playing the saxophone. I often play jazz. I know nothing of chords and scales when I improvise. I know the key and that's it. Yet I seem to play great solos...others who know all of the scales and chords forwards and backwards seem to flounder when they go to improvise.
How can this be? Knowledge does not imply passion, nor vice versa.

It's impossible to claim someone is passionate or not about something just because they don't waste their energy on "book knowledge." Especially when exactly what yo8u should know is so subjective. Perhaps someone learned PERL without the camel book. Perhaps they're not interested in history.
You say there are certain things that people [pundits] should know, but who gets to decide what those certain things are?

Harry Chapin wrote a song called "Mr. Tanner" about a cleaner in Dayton OH who would sing as he worked. Everyone convinced him to go to NYC and try to make it big as a singer. He was ripped up by the critics and came home in disgrace, but told no one what happened, he just stopped singing when others were around.
"Music was his life; it was not his livelihood,
and it made him feel so happy; it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart, he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole."

That's what it means to be passionate about something. >>



maybe "passionate" is an example of a poor choice of wording. I believe that the point of the matter is that, in nearly all things in which you are passionate about...there is at least a modicum of knowledge that goes with that passion. I'm sure there are probably many many many many(did I mention many?) things about kayaking that you know about that I don't. There's probably a slew of things you enjoy about and understand far more than I do about jazz and sax playing than I do. To feel inspired and be fueled on by passion is great, but there is nearly always a foundation of knowledge upon which you build. It doesn't have to be comprehensive, but it isn't negligible. I mean, I wouldn't dream of picking up a saxophone or trumpet and break out blowing horns left and right without learning it first. I wouldn't dream of trying to learn it if I didn't have an interest in it. I would think about becoming proficient ebough to ad lib it unless I was passionate about it on some level. Maybe I'm off my rocker?
 


<< You say there are certain things that people [pundits] should know, but who gets to decide what those certain things are? >>



I don't know. Perhaps it starts when all repeat the mantras perpetuated by a respected member of any given community. I can think of at least one person in almost every facet of development who is respected enough to literally convince (almost) everyone of something by a simple email to a mailing list/newsgroup posting. One example is Don Box in relation to COM. He's the rock star of the COM world. Often his musings are as exciting for some as meeting N' Sync is for many 13yo girls. He has a book, Essential COM, that is more likely than not on the bookshelf of any serious COM developer. It's simply a great text, and any reserach into COM reveals this great resource, thus you find it on the shelf of many of those who are serious about COM. Same goes for anything else...

I know the argument is probably a little superficial, but I think in many (most?) cases, you'll find the same to be true.
 


<< maybe "passionate" is an example of a poor choice of wording. I believe that the point of the matter is that, in nearly all things in which you are passionate about...there is at least a modicum of knowledge that goes with that passion. I'm sure there are probably many many many many(did I mention many?) things about kayaking that you know about that I don't. There's probably a slew of things you enjoy about and understand far more than I do about jazz and sax playing than I do. To feel inspired and be fueled on by passion is great, but there is nearly always a foundation of knowledge upon which you build. It doesn't have to be comprehensive, but it isn't negligible. I mean, I wouldn't dream of picking up a saxophone or trumpet and break out blowing horns left and right without learning it first. I wouldn't dream of trying to learn it if I didn't have an interest in it. I would think about becoming proficient ebough to ad lib it unless I was passionate about it on some level. Maybe I'm off my rocker? >>



Indeed, and if I hadn't yet assimilated this modicum of knowledge but yet perpetuated the idea that I was "into" or "passionate" about the topic in question, you would more likely than not quickly disqualify me as being truly "into" or "passionate" about it.
 


<< maybe "passionate" is an example of a poor choice of wording. I believe that the point of the matter is that, in nearly all things in which you are passionate about...there is at least a modicum of knowledge that goes with that passion. I'm sure there are probably many many many many(did I mention many?) things about kayaking that you know about that I don't. There's probably a slew of things you enjoy about and understand far more than I do about jazz and sax playing than I do. To feel inspired and be fueled on by passion is great, but there is nearly always a foundation of knowledge upon which you build. It doesn't have to be comprehensive, but it isn't negligible. I mean, I wouldn't dream of picking up a saxophone or trumpet and break out blowing horns left and right without learning it first. I wouldn't dream of trying to learn it if I didn't have an interest in it. I would think about becoming proficient ebough to ad lib it unless I was passionate about it on some level. Maybe I'm off my rocker? >>



No, I agree. Any kayaker out there who has surfed more than 5 minutes probably already knows about weighting, braking, ruddering and rolling, although many of them wouldn't be able to explain to you what's going on.
I guess I disagree pretty heavily with Decartes' examples and the original reason he brought them up.
I agree with the fact that in anything there is a basic set of knowledge that anyone who is interested in something probably knows about.



<< Indeed, and if I hadn't yet assimilated this modicum of knowledge but yet perpetuated the idea that I was "into" or "passionate" about the topic in question, you would more likely than not quickly disqualify me as being truly "into" or "passionate" about it. >>


Right. I just think the limits you define as to what the basic knowedge required is too broad. If you tell me you're passionate about playing the saxophone and you don't have the first idea how to play it, I'm definitely going to think you're nuts.
OTOH, if you know how to set the thing up, sound a note and you know all the basic fingerings, that's about where I'd draw the line of common knowedge everyone should know.
Likewise, anyone passionate about Java, I'd expect them to know the basic syntax and how to write a program. I wouldn't expect them to know the history behind it as a language...

The knowledge base should really be limited to what it takes to do the job to one's satisfaction. Some people might take it deeper in one way or another, though.

 


<<

Indeed, and if I hadn't yet assimilated this modicum of knowledge but yet perpetuated the idea that I was "into" or "passionate" about the topic in question, you would more likely than not quickly disqualify me as being truly "into" or "passionate" about it. >>



and I believe your point was something along the lines in that people who share similar passions have the same general experiences which are often associated with certain figures or objects. and at some point, I think yellowplastic's point at some point is that those figures and objects don't necessarily have to be the same....that is, b4 everyone starting being insulted and offended and whatnot and everything just deteriorated faster than a mule left alone by the bank of the hudson.
 
Wow, this thread has really flamed up (pun intended). I think we're missing an important point here: Ms. Spears probably has the IQ of a carrot and probably could care less about music or people she's never met. Descartes, I understand and agree with your point, but some of the language and wording you used was an invitation to those who are looking to start arguments. We all know how people on this board love to flame, and I think flaming is good in moderation, but I'll never cease to be amazed by some things...
 


<< If you're a Perl programmer, you know what "the camel book" is, and you know who Larry Wall is. If you don't, how the hell could you really be a Perl programmer? You may hack out a few lines of code, but you haven't spent much time really learning about your language. >>

What you're referring to is really the age-old issue of academic vs. practical. You certainly DO NOT need to be well-versed in the academic aspects of many things in order to be good at the practical aspects, and who invented what and when is the purely academic aspect of something.

Although, I am a believer in the academic aspects, more so today than when I was younger, because I believe it has value. It can enhance and enrich your understanding of any subject, but it isn't a requisite for understand the practical aspects.

As we know from college, there are people who are passionate about academics but can't tie their shoes without falling over. You can be as passionate about any particular aspect as you wish.

 
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