Geeks, engineers, semantics

[mrph]

Just a random thought, following up from a conversation with Imago a while back.

I find myself extremely reluctant to say to someone else that I understand something, or that I "know what I'm doing". Because my definition of understanding, in most technical or business contexts, is complete understanding - knowing how to take something apart and reassemble it, knowing how it works, why it works, what the functional blocks are and where the limitations are. And if I don't know that (and most of the time, of course, I don't!) then I might have a good idea what it does, or how it works, but I don't really understand it, and will vigorously deny any claims to the contrary.

This is a quirk that doesn't seem to be unique to me - I know whole hosts of programmers and engineers (among other folks) who think that way. Egotist that I am, it doesn't stop me from being quietly confident that I can learn the fine detail and achieve that understanding of most things if I actually have to, mind you...

*sigh* Enough wibbling. My head hurts, my eyes hurt, my tact gland has started aestivating and I reckon it's about time I went and got some sleep.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean in general. I'd be very slow to say I understood Linux because there's too much to know, but I'll happily say I understand the proof of primes because once you get it, that's all there is to it. If you see what I mean.

Bed now. Berlin tomorrow.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of!