Long term goals

[Jon Stanley]

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Toshio Kuratomi <a.badger at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that mentorship has a higher return than documentation...  with
> documentation, we seem to be pushing people into a deep blue sea of
> information without really showing them how to apply that knowledge to
> getting tasks done.  Mentors fill that gap.

While I agree, mentorship also has a higher cost than documentation,
in terms of taking people away from doing productive work. I agree
that the return is *much* higher, both in having people able to make
meaningful contributions and (likely) the retention of those people as
contributors.

However, that equation doesn't always enter people's minds (certainly
not mine unless I consciously make myself think about it like right
now), and they see short-term resource drain vs. long term gains.