vim is the cure to Imposter Syndrome (vimpossible!)
I have experienced Imposter Syndrome and understand how it feels. I'm going to teach people how to be free of this feeling forever by providing an alternative to web development with Linux, Python, Vim, and Git. Vim is a lifetime endeavor and is the native user interface for the Unix Philosophy, created by Bell Labs in 1970, and the Free and Open Source Software movement provides the opportunity to get better with the tools over time.
Overcome Imposter Syndrome with Unix, Linux, Python, Vim, and Git!
By Michael Levin
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
That sounds vimpossible!
Do you know Imposter Syndrome?
It’s the feeling that you’re not actually qualified for the trust people have put into you on some relationship. The feeling that you’re faking it. Ever feel that? It’s called Imposter Syndrome.
Honestly, you’ll never feel imposter syndrome for a minute, if you are adept at vim… if you’re a good vim user. I won’t say “master” vim, for few master vim. It’s a lifetime endeavor, and you will get forever better in that time, as if a artist, musician, athlete (martial arts) in which tools don’t change much over a lifetime. Sure, they might get better or cheaper, but a violin is still a violin. That’s not true for tech and web frameworks and languages and API’s (interfaces). Long story.
So to fight imposter syndrome, learn vim. Practice vim. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. They’ll happen. What you DO need to be aware of is that there is difficult-to-acquire initiation knowledge… yes, like it’s a club. Few old-timers really think they can communicate to you, the youth, the actual incredible value of Unix-like OSes of the type Bell Labs, NJ put together. Everyone credits Ken & Dennis, but at this point it’s important to point out that they unified a lot of good ideas that came from other people and put it in a viral meme OS, because virtualisation and portability.
Unix got some slick tricks right, which is why the popularity of C today, the language that first implemented a type of compiler-based virtualisation that allowed portability between hardware (platforms). Portability contributed to spreading, and some other cool concepts like everything’s-a-file and piping output of one program to the input of another, and how all this is generally command-line interface native. The native user interface for the “Unix Philosophy” is the command-line, a.k.a. Shell or Terminal… and yes, sometimes even TTY for the Teletype Terminals of yore.
Created 1970. We’re in 2022… so that’s 52 years. I’m 52 years old too, so you can hardly blame me for not taking up Unix right away. It took a few years.
Now Unix alone was cool, but the Free and Open Source Software movement is even cooler. There’s 2 main roots of modern tech. There’s a lot of cross-fertilization, but for the most part before the Silicon Valley boom in the West Cost, it was all either Bell Labs or MIT. The former created Unix and the later created LISP. These are the two competing OS/Languages of the early days whose decisions still run through all our tech today.
Unix promised generic plumbing of tech. Very utilitarian and craftsman-like. It provides the opportunities to get better at the tools over time. It’s the ability to “internalize” standard (i.e. static and unchanging) tools into your body. When you learn a tool, you’re creating a copy of it in your mind. You’re “mapping” it. It becomes a part of you, and when the tools goes away, you have a very annoying phantom limb. Get it? Proprietary tools are terrible, because when they go away (or transform too much), you’re screwed.
FOSS, FOSS, FOSS! You can let that into your DNA with the confidence your descendants will be able to instantiate a running instance of your code. Get it? Running systems are about to become inherited human traits. Evolution, beaches. It’s happening right now along with the rise of AI. They’re not the same thing. Generic plumbing of tech can give rise to very useful machinery that is not actually intelligent. It’s just following the script.
So, you must be comfortable on at least what can pose as generic Linux hardware. It’s the standard now. It’s going to be around for awhile. It wasn’t all Unix because Linux is where much of the modern innovation and freedom as in libre spirit has existed for awhile. See? Unix got bogged down by proprietary intellectual property issues while Linux did not. SCO, Linux won. Sorry, Unix. But it’s time to learn systemd as a sort of alternative to Web Development.
Imposter Syndrome sets in when you find yourself only a master of the dead tech recently superseded by the dazzling new thing that it seems like only kids understand. Bullshit! That’s a forever-cycle and only an attribute of the particular platforms you’ve taken up so far. Some platforms don’t go obsolete so fast. So get your code running on Linux generic hardware. Familiarize yourself with how on different hardware and cloud services. Code runs anywhere without designed-in money-making vendor dependency.
See? Linux, Python, vim & git.
Linux and vim should be becoming apparent by now for anyone following the video. But it seem so difficult, Mike! You can’t just jump into vim.
I say you can.
DrinkMe Linux is my way to help people do just that.
I’ll set this environment up… “bottle it”… for anyone wishing to give it a try. And it comes with a running instance of JupyterLab on http://localhost:8888 built-in to help with the transition to Python… always on Screen #2 for me because it’s THAT important. It’s your gateway to Linux and all things Linux making sense to you without seeing a Linux Desktop at all. Linux is not about desktops. Linux is about running code.
My thoughts from this morning…
Imposter Syndrome
You’ve all felt it.
The nagging feeling you aren’t really qualified for the trust people have put in you.
I’m going to teach you how to be free of imposter syndrome for the rest of your life.
My field of search engine optimization, a.k.a. SEO, is full of them.
I remember I was the director of SEO at a small marketing firm in NYC called Flying Point Digital
Best practices are flocking playbooks making most folks into sheeple.
Humans all have about the same level of image capabilities. X-men-style mutants are y real.
Perseverance and ambition can elevate some beyond seeming natural limits, like Einstein or Michael Jordan.