Question

Is it normal for one to feel that he knows nothing about computers? Whenever my colleagues speak to me about their Java projects or whenever I read shadowfiend's posts, I get lost :( Similarly, whenever I read the technical documentation regarding the low-level implementation of hardware components (think the intel or AMD manuals as well as the Linux kernel), or whenever I read computer science papers regarding some algorithm, data structure analysis, or cool new AI stuff, I feel humbled by how little I know.

Is it alright to feel like one doesn't `know it all' at all?

Answer 1

psh, yes! One of the only reasons people talk about computer science is to spark your interest - not to give you a bad day. My suggestion would be to find one really cool CS thing that you really want to learn more about and then proceed to study a small portion of that subject out the wazoo.

Answer 2

try from something that you know about a little bit.....:D

Answer 3

I agree. Focus on some part that interests you. start very small. master the small thing. gradually build upon that.

Answer 4

I want to know what makes unix so great, so I've started by learning C, and by reading the GNU coreutils source code and documentation and stuff. Maybe now I can start reimplementing each command one-by-one.

Answer 5

Then hopefully I will get an epiphany and understand what unix really means

Answer 6

unix is an operating system : it provides the middle layer between the hardware and the software components. People like most unix flavors because they are free and modifiable. If you want to learn more about Unix and operating systems, I suggest you check into Andrew Tannenbaum's books and also the Minix OS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX -- I had one of his books in my operating systems class and minix is what he created for educational purposes for creating operating systems

Answer 7

Try implementing a toy OS after you have sufficient knowledge for that. It is fun!