Today I read two blog posts that influenced me to write this up.

One was from Karl-Henry Marinsson
https://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/texasswede/entry/are_inexperienced_developers_the_death_of_notes?lang=en_us

the other was from Bob Balfe – https://blog.balfes.net/2012/09/10/why-khan-academy-is-a-great-site/

One of the things that has changed in the last 10-15 years is the wide availability of the internet and content from every part of the world. This has significantly levelled the playing field in knowledge acquisition. I could live in the remotest of areas and if I had an internet connection, I can learn a concept the same way as someone sitting in Silicon Valley. The Khan Academy site is a case in point. A child in US or Europe, China, India or Africa today has the opportunity to learn Math in the same way. The resource is available, mostly free – The difference is about taking the time to utilize this resource to its potential.

I feel that the problem with a lot of young developers is that they don’t want to utilize this resource well. If they took the time to read through the wikis, blogs, videos sometimes the answers already in the developer forums they would be able to gain the knowledge. However if all they want to do is to take a shortcut – get the answer from someone / copy & paste the code and complete their task, they are not doing justice to what’s available. This is a trend I see not just in the Lotus Notes world but across all technologies.

Taking the time to acquire and assimilate the knowledge so freely given is a skill and each developer must inculcate it into themselves. Similarly, sharing the knowledge that they gain freely to the world is also a skill. Those who are able to do both of these are more likely to scale heights in their profession than those who do not.

An old cartoon from Hackles that’s relevant today

Credit for the cartoon – https://hackles.org/cgi-bin/archives.pl?request=37