holyoak

Monkey Wrench Gang, though very popular, is not a good synopsis of Abbey. Other writings are much deeper and less deliberately absurd. This was the quote is was referring to:

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

My question: How important is Mongo U in your vision for MongoDB? What is the end goal of Mongo U, and what will it take to achieve/maintain that vision?

I went through the first iteration of Mongo U, and it was great. Loved it.

Tried again last year, and it was horrific. Outdated presentations, incorrect answers, incomplete instructions for the assignments. And the proctors; omg the proctors. They were not helpful in any sense of the word, and actively belittled students for asking legitimate questions. Or repeatedly killed threads that had identical questions from multiple students, and then re-killed the thread when it was reposted. And this is not even addressing the dropout rate based on Vagrant/Virtualbox, which has it s own chapter of technical debt (not yours, but your choice to go that route).

In a nutshell, it seems the product is growing faster than the curriculum is being updated. It also seems that proctors are being chosen based on something other than teaching/interpersonal skills.

Is the brass at Mongo aware of the decline in quality of this project? Is this something that os just gonna be phased out? Is there a way i can help out on a real level (not just adding another ticket to the queue)? Thanks for answering, if you get to this~

What is your opinion of the author Ed Abbey? Followup, now that some time has passed since his death, would you change his prescription for the outdoors? If so, how?

Thanks for responding. Sorry if i came across as complaining. I do think Mongo U has been an amazing resource, and was just disappointed at the decline in quality.

For reference, i took many classes,(103,121,201,220JS,220P,310 + a couple no longer in the catalog) and these issues were not confined to one class, but seemed to get worse at the 300 level.

Will try to follow up once i get on the box i used and have access to exact convos and assignments.

I am not sure i feel capable of summarizing such a powerful writer and thinker, but i will give it a try.

As you know, he wrote the book in concentration camps during WWII.

His central theme was that it is arrogant and presumptuous of humans to demand to know the meaning of life. Instead of asking such a juvenile and needy question, we should instead recognize that we are asked this same question every day. It is not our place to demand an answer, it is our duty to supply one. The meaning of our lives is only what we make it.

His proof of concept was the horror around him. Most people just gave up and died. Some struggled for a bit and eventually succumbed. The ones who survived, according to Frankl, were those who had a goal or desire that was so important for them to achieve that they viewed the life in concentration camps only as an obstacle in their path to creating the meaning of their life. For some it was seeing their family again. For others is was revenge. For him it was publishing his book.

The reason i asked the question was to see if you had identified something that was so important to you that it kept you going in times of darkness, or if you thought it was your natural toughness, fate, or just dumb luck that got you through.

As i look at this summary, it is very inadequate, and i probably misstate some things as i am just writing from memory. It's a very short book, and well worth the read.