One of my good friends is making me feel really bad about a couple of things at the moment. She is well aware of the first issue and has apologized genuinely and her apology has been accepted. The other thing she makes me feel bad about is the fact that I, just like her, am one of those researchers trying to be both geek and human. I truly believe that this is possible but keep forgetting how difficult it is to become proficient in both worlds. I can talk Star Trek with even the biggest trekkie, but I cannot (like my friend is also claiming) build a larger program by myself or without using considerable time to re-capture the essentials of the Java API (not to talk about if I was to use C++, a language I have only read, not programmed in) or just finding a decent editor that would fit my (tragic) Windows need. However, I am convinced that if I put myself down to it I would succeed. One of my geek traits have always been that I in fact find programming fun. But I am not a complete geek, I am too proficient in talking about real life and other things than the latest version of C#. Neither do I have a Masters in psychology or sociology, but only minored in psychology, which kept my courses constrained to basics. The philosophy I have read is confined to what is in Paul's book, if you don't count high school Plato. Needless to say, I am neither a true geek, neither a true human.
Before talking about this with my friend (after being inspired by .danah), I blissfully believed that I was good enough to make it in this harsh world even with this discrepancy between my two fields of interest. I thought that my strengths were this combination of being able to talk the geek language, while still emphasizing human factors of technology. Now I just feel like someone who couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to major in computer science or psychology. But I chose computer science and live with the choice because I still believe that the technical background gives me strengths to understand issues of limitations that I would otherwise have missed. I still madly want to get back into programming because, well, there is nothing like that feeling of success when your program compiles the first time. Perhaps, that would be the feeling you get when your latest paper (made with blood, sweat and tears, thank you Paul) gets accepted. But I still have about a month of waiting for that. However, in the end, I guess, nothing really beats the feeling of excitement when going to one of your favorite conferences for a whole week of fun, networking, good talks, catching up with friends and who knows, making new 'friends'? And perhaps since my friend is going to the conference too, we can have a little talk about that bad feeling of being incompetent in something that we have devoted our (working) lives to. And if I am very lucky I will realize that most people feel insufficient in some way, no matter how many years they have worked in a field, so we should just get going and stop worrying about our inadequacies and enjoy what we are doing RIGHT NOW!
Posted by Louise at April 23, 2004 06:57 PMwell i glad you have forgiven be for the bad conscience thing. i just need to state that the technical background of yours is not about being able to see limitations rather it enables you to see possibilities and those are not to underestimate
"I still believe that the technical background gives me strengths to understand issues of limitations that I would otherwise have missed."
– by knowing the borders you can see beyond.
Posted by: anna at April 23, 2004 07:20 PMI'm going to echo Anna: your strength is in being a bridge. You understand the space of technological possibilities far better than most non-geeks; you understand the social constraints better than most humanists.
That's worth a lot.
Would it be cool for you to brush up on your code? Should you read a little more sociology and business development? Do I look fat in these pants?
Nice thing about all of those questions is that we don't ask them, you don't answer them. But you probably should work on the first two issues, and I'll work on the third.
Posted by: Danyel Fisher at April 23, 2004 09:33 PMThere are many parts to this.
First, everyone is a sum of particular experiences and particular modes of learning. No specific accumulation of knowledge and practices is particularly privileged over any other. As computer science becomes an increasingly intricate discipline, and an increasingly meaningless category, this problem is only going to become more visible, but it's clearly visible even now; you could equally fault the most skilled programmer for lack of understanding of VLSI layout strategies, resolution in linear logic, or Wittgenstein's private language argument. Everyone's depth is selective. So don't be fooled or cajoled into accepting a distinction between "real" computer science and HCI, for example. They are both selections.
Second, everyone working between the traditional boundaries of disciplines experiences this guilt, and (I'm afraid) it doesn't go away. I experience it all the time, and I expect to continue to do so.
Third (although more difficultly), the important thing is not so much the depth in particular areas, or the sets of concepts that you use, so much as the rigor with which you use them. The danger in interdisciplinary work is not that you don't know X or Y, or that you don't do X or Y, but that you sacrifice the rigor with which the concepts are used in order to translate them from one language or place to another. If you can talk across boundaries but without sacrificing rigor, then that's a pretty outstanding job and you can feel happy.
Unfortunately, that does tend to involve blood, sweat, and tears. :-)
Um, have you tried TextPad (www.textpad.com) for you Windows editing woes? Good macros capabilities, configurable syntax highlighting, relatively cheap (well, very cheap if you can ignore the occasional nag screen ...)
Posted by: daen at April 25, 2004 05:08 PMSince it's impossible to be good at everything at the same time, just try to focus on choosing a few things from each field that you are really good at? You cannot know everything even within one field, so I think it's more a question of having understood one aspect of a field to a degree where you understand how the field generally works.
And hey, you use LaTex for writing - that buys you a lot of geek cred, among other things because it's a complete waste of time, it simply signals that you'd rather be programming than writing ;)
(
Kate Bush sings:
You worry too much
It's going to be alright
)
Hmmm. Louise, did you mean editor:
1) as in general purpose text editor à la .txt ; or
2) as in document preparation à la LaTeX?
If 1) then I'd still suggest TextPad (actually, I'd suggest Brief if it was still being produced) though I hear SlickEdit is good if you want to pay $329 for the privilege or you could get Zeus for $35.
Posted by: daen at April 27, 2004 12:57 AM