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And in the tech world. I had a sweng government contractor making six figures ask me how to sort lines in a text file.


Three of my forty coworkers actually understand the command-line on a level nearly on par with me, and I'm not an expert (locally, yes; globally, hardly). It's been frustrating me since my first real job in industry and others in government. I think I got spoiled in college by being surrounded by (mostly) curious tinkerers who had no problem delving into the multitude of tools that were available and exploring them. Post-school, people seem to lose that curiosity, if they ever possessed it, as a group.


I've been in job situations where just picking up a handful of hotkeys for a program is seen as Deep Wizardry. Most people just never learn how to do things like that.


And this is why 10x programmers are a thing.


Maybe it's not losing curiosity, but changes in priorities.

IME: I had much more time available to spend learning tools like that. Now that I work, have a family, etc, I don't have as much time to spend.


Learning tools like that should be part of your work imho.


Sure, a part of it is. But I also have a lot of stuff that I have to get done at work as well, that I didn't have to get done at school.


It sounds like you took the wrong job. I was surrounded by curious tinkerers in school, and I'm very happy to say that at my first two jobs I have been surrounded by curious tinkerers.


Maybe you're just a better person than them.


Possibly, but doubtful. I suppose really it's the unwillingness to learn (by otherwise educated and intelligent people, so they have or at least had the capacity for learning at one point). This is just a glaring example in the programming field. We literally program computers to do whatever we want (modulo performance or physical limitations), why would our tools be any different?




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