It's.A.Leaking.Barrel

Lately, I have been thinking...

I've been spending a lot of my time (and life) maintaining the technology knowledge that I have and learning up new technologies that maybe useful to my work (or career). I have also been spending a lot of my time and money on certifications.

My weeknights and weekends are dedicated to reading up on what's new and cool, experimenting with betas, writing my pet-project Paladin and contributing to the online community through forums. I spend majority of my time sitting in front of the computer.

It's not to say that I don't enjoy what I do, but I feel that if only the knowledge that I acquire is non-volatile, I could do more (or even wonders). Learning IT is like pouring water into a leaking barrel. Whatever knowledge we acquire becomes obsolete faster than we can say 'obsolete'. Hence, we can never fill our knowledge barrel and move on to the next.

Of course when we first started to learn about IT, it sounds so exciting - apps, databases, architectures. And we all have a dream of "I wanna do that someday". But after nearing a decade in the industry, everything appears to be more or less the same to me. Those COM, VB6 and ASP knowledge that I have acquired are as good as exhibits in the museum.

What more in today's market, solutions are driven by customers. Hence, we got learn (and maintain) stuff like our knowledge in Java and .NET, various database products, various platforms and etc. And they all go obsolete together.

So, I'm thinking. If I spend the same amount of time I used for technology now onto non-volatile knowledge i.e. cookie-making, selling, business, finance, medicine or even history, I could have many knowledge barrels that don't leak (or leak slower). That could make me a more knowledgeable person or even give me a better life. *Man! Those salespeople can go home and bake cakes while I return to my miserable room to read MSDN*

But after saying all that, I'm still in the midst of recalibrating my mentality. Right now, I'm still thinking of getting that MCSA 2003, looking at SQL Server 2005 and even tempted to take OCA/OCP. I guess old habits die hard.