<< A dark and cold place, without any young people, any fresh blood, any hope, very sad >>

The movies are full of the brilliant Young Turk (look it up, hint: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) who shows up the stodgy old professors. The real world isn't as much fun. All those fresh, young ideas turn out to be recycled from the early days of IT and electronics because someone didn't study the history of their chosen profession. Experience does count for something, in knowing What Has Come Before but mostly in knowing what doesn't work...the stuff that isn't taught in school. The "old mens club" members all went through the same early enthusiasm of the new student let loose on the world, and they all had the dogs of reality set upon them. "Crushing everything to death" is what happens when you discover that vendors don't always deliver parts, what they do deliver doesn't always work, and even if the part does appear to work it could be your instruments lying to you. This forum provides that cold splash of water in the face for the overly optimistic who can easily lead their company into technical and financial quicksand.

Yes, there are no dumb questions...the first time one asks. Endlessly repeating the same homework questions out of laziness deserves the rewards this forum bestows on such people. Does it drive them away? Probably, but ask the more relevant question, "is this a bad thing?" Do you really want an "engineer" with that kind of attitude designing the avionics for the aircraft you are sitting in 30,000 above the middle of the Pacific Ocean?

Sure, it's no fun to look at all those annoying details in the datasheets, to make sure the instruments really are calibrated, to do the literature search to find out how someone else solved the same problem in 1958. It stifles creativity. It's much more fun to invent one's own personal version of the oblong wheel rather than to learn that industry standard commodity round ones invented by someone else actually work better.

Very sad? Yes indeed, but sad because of the closed mind that can't accept that the gray haired elders in the tribe do have useful wisdom to share about the unseen sabertooth lurking in the dark.
Jack Peacock