Σχόλια στο “But how do I find out?” http://blog.postmaster.gr/2009/09/29/howto/ Managing organized complexity Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:51:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ Από: thanos http://blog.postmaster.gr/2009/09/29/howto/#comment-43337 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:43:59 +0000 http://blog.postmaster.gr/?p=2653#comment-43337 Put differently, almost everything you get out of google (and essentially the web) is push-mode information, since it requires someone to push it out there, most times without any explicit demand. It is obvious that push-mode works great for very popular items but not so great for unpopular, rare or obscure items. Asking questions is pull-mode, with explicit demand for the information you are seeking, so it works well for everything, assuming that the people you are asking have the answer.

This obviously places the burden of intelligence on the question-asker, not the network. And yes, even though there are no silly questions, there are silly ways of getting information. For example, asking about C++ coding tips in a gardening forum will not get you a (good) answer.

I now work at a place that can be described as “the great (computer) science museum”. There is tons of history here and stories that you cannot find anywhere on the web and the only way to get it is to literally be here and ask around. There is absolutely no substitute to face-to-face conversation; not chat, irc, twitter and other stuff like that—they are not good information retrieval tools UNLESS a previous face-to-face connection already exists.

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