5 ms·

I love Blender, but knowing how to use it is a real profession. So many functionalities ... Even reading a book on Blender is not enough.

mdtusz 7y ago
"I love $PROFESSIONAL_SOFTWARE_TOOL, but knowing how to use it is a real profession. So many functionalities ... Even reading a book on $PROFESSIONAL_SOFTWARE_TOOL is not enough." In our current age of endless SaaS tools that bill themselves as being made for professional use, it's somewhat frustrating encountering this attitude that things are too complex or "overkill" to be worth learning. I understand that isn't the intention of your comment, but it's something I've struggled with at my work where co-workers seem to have no interest in learning new and powerful tools if it might take them more than a day to master.
- siffland 7y ago
  I work IT and have the same issues, coworkers dont want to learn new tools. This is a huge issue, if your employer wants you to learn a new peice of software, that is your job. It annoys me here at work, i go home and watch videos, download demos and put the effort in (and it is noticed at work) and some of my coworkers dont and then get annoyed when they dont understand how the new software works. it is just frustrating, glad it is not just where i work.
  - tangue 7y ago
    I don't want to watch videos and read books when I'm going home. I have a thing called life and actually love it. If a PM wants me to learn a new tool (I'm thinking especially of useless migrations to Grunt, Gulp, Broccoli, Rollup, Webpack ...) or the f*ing js framework of the day, I had to do it during my working hours. I'm with your coworkers.
    - jlg23 7y ago
      The comment you responded to was not about "learning in billable hours" Vs "learning in your spare time" but about the willingness to learn at all.
      - 0xffff2 7y ago
        Except they also explicitly talk about learning new tools on their own time. I'm not paid to learn new tools. I'm paid to write software. If someone on my team tries to convince everyone that some tool they learned on their own time is great and everyone needs to start using it yesterday, either the company needs to let everyone bill hours to learn the new tool or we're not using it. The comment very much does come across as being mad at coworkers for not putting in time after-hours.
        jlg23 7y ago
        > I'm not paid to learn new tools. I'm paid to write software. All fine, if your contract has the "I am a robot" clause or if you happen to write COBOL for a living. The rest of us will have to learn to stay up-to-date, just like carpenters, doctors or gardeners. Because nobody wants to hire someone who missed all progress since graduation...
        0xffff2 7y ago
        Well, I write Java and C++ for a living. Maybe that's the same as COBOL if you're a front-end JavaScript developer? What, exactly is there for me to "stay up to date" on? I'm not saying that you should never learn anything new. For example, I really hope that I have a chance to ditch C++ and Java both for Rust one day, but I can't just go and do it today and that's fine. Change does not need to happen at the pace that some people seems to think it does.
        jlg23 7y ago
        I cannot provide any examples for your languages of choice but mine (CL) is older and I do check out new libraries. And yes, I would be pretty irritated to find anyone in my team who thinks there is nothing else for him/her to learn, even in their field of expertise.
    - bwfilms 7y ago
      Have to agree with this. I'd rather spend only work hours on tech du-jour. I spend plenty of my own time on math/CS/<techs that I'm personally interested in>, and I think companies benefit from those as they make me a better programmer - but most/all? companies don't really appreciate and never reward those efforts 'cause those aren't the latest fads <sigh>.
Grazester 7y ago
I felt the same way about 3DS MAx when I discovered it in the 90's. I then realized that I didn't have to know how to use every feature in it but just what I needed/wanted to do. That at the time was simple model creation and keyframe aninmation
ur-whale 7y ago
> knowing how to use it is a real profession Actually ... with things like Google, youtube and stackoverflow, that's not really true anymore. These days, whenever I want to do something non-obvious with blender, I always find an online tutorial.

mdtusz 7y ago

"I love $PROFESSIONAL_SOFTWARE_TOOL, but knowing how to use it is a real profession. So many functionalities ... Even reading a book on $PROFESSIONAL_SOFTWARE_TOOL is not enough." In our current age of endless SaaS tools that bill themselves as being made for professional use, it's somewhat frustrating encountering this attitude that things are too complex or "overkill" to be worth learning. I understand that isn't the intention of your comment, but it's something I've struggled with at my work where co-workers seem to have no interest in learning new and powerful tools if it might take them more than a day to master.

siffland 7y ago
I work IT and have the same issues, coworkers dont want to learn new tools. This is a huge issue, if your employer wants you to learn a new peice of software, that is your job. It annoys me here at work, i go home and watch videos, download demos and put the effort in (and it is noticed at work) and some of my coworkers dont and then get annoyed when they dont understand how the new software works. it is just frustrating, glad it is not just where i work.
- tangue 7y ago
  I don't want to watch videos and read books when I'm going home. I have a thing called life and actually love it. If a PM wants me to learn a new tool (I'm thinking especially of useless migrations to Grunt, Gulp, Broccoli, Rollup, Webpack ...) or the f*ing js framework of the day, I had to do it during my working hours. I'm with your coworkers.
  - jlg23 7y ago
    The comment you responded to was not about "learning in billable hours" Vs "learning in your spare time" but about the willingness to learn at all.
    - 0xffff2 7y ago
      Except they also explicitly talk about learning new tools on their own time. I'm not paid to learn new tools. I'm paid to write software. If someone on my team tries to convince everyone that some tool they learned on their own time is great and everyone needs to start using it yesterday, either the company needs to let everyone bill hours to learn the new tool or we're not using it. The comment very much does come across as being mad at coworkers for not putting in time after-hours.
      - jlg23 7y ago
        > I'm not paid to learn new tools. I'm paid to write software. All fine, if your contract has the "I am a robot" clause or if you happen to write COBOL for a living. The rest of us will have to learn to stay up-to-date, just like carpenters, doctors or gardeners. Because nobody wants to hire someone who missed all progress since graduation...
        0xffff2 7y ago
        Well, I write Java and C++ for a living. Maybe that's the same as COBOL if you're a front-end JavaScript developer? What, exactly is there for me to "stay up to date" on? I'm not saying that you should never learn anything new. For example, I really hope that I have a chance to ditch C++ and Java both for Rust one day, but I can't just go and do it today and that's fine. Change does not need to happen at the pace that some people seems to think it does.
        jlg23 7y ago
        I cannot provide any examples for your languages of choice but mine (CL) is older and I do check out new libraries. And yes, I would be pretty irritated to find anyone in my team who thinks there is nothing else for him/her to learn, even in their field of expertise.
  - bwfilms 7y ago
    Have to agree with this. I'd rather spend only work hours on tech du-jour. I spend plenty of my own time on math/CS/<techs that I'm personally interested in>, and I think companies benefit from those as they make me a better programmer - but most/all? companies don't really appreciate and never reward those efforts 'cause those aren't the latest fads <sigh>.

Grazester 7y ago

I felt the same way about 3DS MAx when I discovered it in the 90's. I then realized that I didn't have to know how to use every feature in it but just what I needed/wanted to do. That at the time was simple model creation and keyframe aninmation

ur-whale 7y ago

> knowing how to use it is a real profession Actually ... with things like Google, youtube and stackoverflow, that's not really true anymore. These days, whenever I want to do something non-obvious with blender, I always find an online tutorial.