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[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 08:41:34PM -0400, GCC Consulting wrote:
> Actually, I've only bothered with about 6-10 books. I defer mostly to
> online docs as more convenient more oft than not.
>
> I've never understood this fascination-bordering-on-obsession with
> conferences, meetings, seminars, etc., when a good old piece of plain
> old documentation will do the job.

It's simple:  most documentation sucks.

Live presentations tend to be composed largely of examples, which are
precisely the thing that most doco lacks.  In addition, if you don't
*quite* get something, all you have to do to close the feedback loop is
stick your hand up.

> I would hardly qualify most conferences, meetings, etc., as
> "necessary", for exactly these reasons. And I'm nowhere near a
> management type. It's just so self-evident to me.

And networking is a business activity, in itself.

> The advantage to the chat room is the discussions one can have
> regarding a problem and hearing answers or being more deeply
> questioned about what the problem is.

Precisely.  Er, I think someone's bad quoting style has cause me to
suddenly be replying to someone else.  

> Since I am self-employed, my attending a training classes or
> conferences comes doubly out of my pocket. I have to pay to attend and
> during the time I am at the conference or classes, I am loosing some
> income as I am doing a lot less billing. I usually am able to work on
> some small projects while away.

Everytime I've gone somewhere, it was worth the time and money.  YMMV.

> Richard Kreiss GCC Consulting

Maybe not.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff     Baylink                             RFC 2100
The Suncoast Freenet         The Things I Think
Tampa Bay, Florida        http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

        "They had engineers in my day, too."  -- Perry Vance Nelson