Perhaps predictably, I've become too busy with the actual running of Mendicant University to spend a significant amount of time each day talking about what we're doing and how we got where we are. I did spend a whole day wandering around in the Montreal underground city trying to figure out why focusing on real projects is so important to me, and the differences between amateurs, experts, and professionals. I struggled with thinking about how those three titles can apply to one person, and the tensions that exist between the three roles. The best I could come up with was a slightly modified form of a quote I found in a Go book: "Amateurs play the game, experts study it, professionals labor at it" (the expert bit was my addition).
I think that these stories are important for establishing a background story for what is still mostly an underground program. Perhaps it would be better if folks who are blogging elsewhere would contact me and we could do some interviews by email or Skype voice to answer the questions people might be interested in? Whether that happens or not, I'll revisit this project of telling our story some time in the future, but for now, I need to put this series on hold.
Hello, my name is Gregory Brown. I am the founder of Mendicant University, a free online school for software developers.
I am passionate about community service, education, and the free software movement. If you're interested in getting to know me a bit better, feel free to send me an email: gregory.t.brown@gmail.com
