RE: Open Access for RPG

Scott, you along with few others have made leaps-and-bounds of progress in
bringing so many of the rest of us - sometimes kicking and screaming - into
significantly more modern practices and capabilities. I'm convinced, for
example, that without your efforts there would be almost nobody building
spreadsheets and implementing sockets in their RPG programs. As it is, we
see these things happening all over the place. The archives will tell you,
if you have doubts! Your presentation is marvelous and your patience seems
unending when you're trying to explain.

There is another reason we might not see progress when we attempt to lay our
wisdom on the "young," and that is simply invisibility. The nature of the
media in which your efforts are focused (conferences, e-mail, web presence,
...) is that you don't get to see the result, except by feedback, and that
feedback seldom comes. Oh, sure, there are one-offs, but on the whole, we
just go silently on our merry way.

I'll admit that there are some who are lazy, some who won't get it, but it's
a mistake to take that attribute and affix it to any particular group (RPG
programmers being one example group). You take carpenters, construction
workers, cake decorators, Java programmers, entrepreneurs, realtors and any
other set of people, and you'll find the vast majority of them repeating
prior successes, copying and pasting if you will, hoping to get out of this
life with as little effort as possible. That was my real objection.

I read somewhere that <snip> happiest periods of people's lives is
when they're successful in trying new things. Yet, their natural
inclination is to keep doing what they're already doing, and not to
change at all. <snip> Isn't that ironic?

Ironic and sad. But don't think you haven't lit some fires under peoples'
chairs by demonstrating what's possible; don't think you haven't reduced
that population! Your efforts reach farther, I suspect, than you realize,
and by the above that means that you've increased the world's happiness!

Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
"When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't
the slightest intention of putting it into practice."
-- Prince Otto von Bismark

Yes. When one has tried, over and over, to persuade others in the

merits of

his own ways, the fault is obviously with the others. It could not

possibly

be related to presentation or ability to teach/lead. There was an
instructor with that attitude at a university I attended. He wasn't

there

long, though. Keep telling yourself this, John.

(sigh)

In some cases, you're right, it's the instructors fault. But on the
other hand, you can't teach someone who won't listen or even try to
learn.

I've done my best, for years, trying _very_ hard to make a change to
this community. To get people to wake up to new possibilities, to
improve their skills, so that RPG and IBM i aren't left forever with
that "legacy" stigma. I think I've made a difference, but still by
and large, the RPG community is decades out of date.

But as you say, perhaps it's my ability to present. Or my ability to
teach/lead. I'm not a teacher (by trade) so perhaps I was a fool to
try.

And since there's no money in teaching, I still have to work my "real"
job. So after 7 years of giving up my free time, vacation time, etc
to teach (while still working full-time as a programmer, not a
teacher) I'm extremely burned out and just tired... sooooo tired...

I read somewhere that people are happiest when trying something new.
The
happiest periods of people's lives is when they're successful in
trying new things. Yet, their natural inclination is to keep doing
what they're already doing, and not to change at all.

Isn't that ironic?
--
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