Aral Balkan

Lets make today a special day in which you are encouraged to admit that you don't know something. Anything, really. Perhaps that you don't know how many planets there are in the solar system (hey, it keeps changing and the count is apparently currently at eight) or how many arguments the Tween class in Flash takes in its constructor (the answer, according to Jen's tutorial, is seven and that's the reason why I keep wishing they'd used a parameter object instead).

Admitting that you do not know something is a very important step in the eventual road to knowing something. And, in this day and age, the road between not knowing and knowing can be a very short ride indeed thanks to the all-mighty wisdom of Google so you really don't have too many excuses for not eventually finding things out, even if you don't know them this very instant.

Personally, when I don't know something, I say "I don't know." I might follow this up with "but I'll find out" but I usually don't even bother as I personally take it for granted that that is implied. And I find that I expect the same of others, both in life generally and when working together. At the very least, I believe that it shows that you have respect for the other person by not wasting their time with hastily-constructed misinformation.

Misinformation sucks. I'd rather have less information than misinformation. In fact, in this age of information overload, I place great value on retaining a small pool of succint, precise knowledge that is well-organized. Instead of retaining an endless store of facts, I try to retain a carefully-selected set of processes and links; a conceptual map that I can apply to different situations. A map that I can zoom in on when necessary and use to gather detailed information for specific instances that I can later conveniently forget, while remaining secure in the knowledge that I retain the tools I need for finding it again should I require it. Keeping a blog is great for this, by the way. I usually blog things that I feel I may need later but which I do not want to commit to memory (hey, memory is expensive!)

But I diverge...

It all begins with admitting that there will always be more out there that you do not know than you do know and that's not a bad thing, or a good thing -- it just is. There's nothing to be ashamed of in not knowing something. The saying goes that "to not know that you don't know" is the worst thing. I would add to this that "not admitting that you don't know" is equally as bad.

So, as part of I Don't Know Day, I invite you to add to the comments something that you don't know (and then share with us what you find out about it.)

Comments

• i dont know what the hell your talking about mate

  by vinnie vivace on 2006-08-31 08:30:14

• I'm about to start a new project, and I'd like to switch from timeline coding to Class based coding, but I don't know where & how to start (yet!) :)

  by Marten on 2006-08-31 09:02:54

• I don't know how to think to everything on a project so I avoid bugs...

  by Flapflap on 2006-08-31 09:08:10

• I don't know how to use Model View Controller in my projects/websites

  by Wouter on 2006-08-31 09:57:58

• Vinnie: LOL! Love the honesty, man :) Marten: Take a look at this tutorial I wrote a little while ago. It should provide a starting point. Flapflap: You can't avoid bugs -- software will always have bugs. What's important is not to see these as mistakes but as a natural part of the development process. Of course, there are ways to architect your applications so that they are easier to maintain and have less bugs to start with (search for "loose coupling" and "separation of concerns" in Google.) One thing I find is that violating encapsulation is a surefire way to get into trouble. Separating your business logic from your presentation logic is also very important (search for "model-view-controller" and read through the Handling Data Quick Starts on the Adobe Flex Developer Site.) At the end of the day, the architecture of your application and your development process will have a huge impact on the number of bugs in your application. The idea is to try and reduce them as much as possible from the beginning but also to make it easier to find them and fix them if they do exist. To this end, compile-time bugs are much easier to find than run-time bugs and this is why it's important to use static typing and to make the intent of your code as clear as possible. If you're serious about reducing bugs in your code and making it easier to maintain and scale ook into "test-first development" and "unit testing". Wouter: Have you tried downloading Arp and working through the manual and the sample applications. Start with the release version and, when you're more comfortable, take a look at the Subversion repository for the latest version. Keep 'em coming guys (and gals) and don't forget to update us as to what you find out about your particular "I Don't Know!" :)

  by aral on 2006-08-31 10:32:00

• When I first read this post this morning I wanted to look in to mnemonic systems - I found myself trying to remember my girlfriend's mobile number the other night after my phone battery died, and realised I didn't know it because I almost never dialled it manually. In between bouts of Flex2 tutorial reading I had a quick read up on the DOMINIC system and I have already used it to memorize 5 of the most important mobile numbers in my address book. For those who don't know about it, you map single digits to letters of the alphabet (eg 1=A, 2=B, 3=C etc). You can them group letters in to pairs and each pair can represent, for example, a person's initials. Single digits can also be associated with an object (eg 2 looks like a swan, 4 looks like a sail boat and 0 could be anything round, such as a "bouncy hopper") Together with a 'Journey Map' (ie a route you are familiar with) you can use it to recall long numbers. The more bizarre your story, the more likely you are to remember the number. For example, to remember the number 120422 I could use a route (from my first floor flat to the street below) and concoct the following story: Aral Balkan (A=1, B=2) gets on his bouncy hopper (round object=0) and bounces down the stairs to the front door. Outside on the street there is a sail boat (4) being pulled by two swans (22) which he gets in to. Although the example number I gave is quite short, the system allows you to easily recall 11 digit phone numbers, or PI to the first 50 decimal places, or whatever ;-) If you want more info, just Google for it! I also now know a more about Item Renderers and Data Binding in Flex2.

  by Neil on 2006-08-31 10:53:40

• I don't know enough about .net or this new CMS.

  by Olly on 2006-08-31 11:23:03

• I don't know when I'll be done paying off my college and med school loans! I don't know why I'll spend 14 bucks on a DVD I'll watch twice and shelf but complain about a $3.00 toothbrush that I'll use until the bristles fall out. I don't know if my ego can withstand the devastation of saying "I don't know" in the presence of another primate. I don't know how long that Burger King bag has been in the back seat of my car and I don't know if that green stuff growing on it counts as a vegetable. I don't know if some of my Psychiatry patients actually do hear voices that I can't and are sane and I'm deaf.

  by diamondtearz on 2006-08-31 11:30:41

• I don't know why I didn't order my MacBook Pro sooner ...

  by Peter on 2006-08-31 11:34:05

• An specialist is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. A generalist is one who know less and less, about more and more until eventually he know nothing about everything.

  by Mike on 2006-08-31 11:34:32

• Aral Balkan (A=1, B=2) gets on his bouncy hopper (round object=0) and bounces down the stairs to the front door. Outside on the street there is a sail boat (4) being pulled by two swans (22) which he gets in to.

  OK, that's just freaky, Neil -- how the heck do you know my morning routine, you perv?! :P

  by aral on 2006-08-31 11:35:28

• [...] I don't know.   I'll even take the blank look if you don't polute it with a river of Bullsh!t. Stop by Aral's site and let your ignorance lead you to bliss!!! [...]

  by diamondTearz » Happy I Don’t Know day! on 2006-08-31 11:35:54

• I don't know where the S's went from my "know"s do you?

  by Mike on 2006-08-31 11:41:40

• Olly, same here. I looked into C# a bit a while back and really liked what I saw and I'd love to get into Mono a bit (if only to see if I can help with porting FlashDevelop to OS X and Linux.) Alas, there's that damn 24-hours/day limit I keep bumping up against! diamondtearz: LOL -- I do the toothbrush/dvd thing too! (Only, I don't think I watch it a second time so kudos there!) I'd pass on tasting the vegetable :P Peter: I ask myself that all the time :) Mike: LOL -- nice!

  by aral on 2006-08-31 11:41:41

• "Misinformation sucks. I’d rather have less information than misinformation." Tell my teenage son that. The foundation for every argument he has includes, "It was on Wikipedia (so it must be true) !!". Oh, and I don't know what to eat for breakfast.

  by Brandon Ellis on 2006-08-31 11:43:05

• No idea, Mike, I don't know! :)

  by aral on 2006-08-31 11:44:11

• "how the heck do you know my morning routine, you perv?! :P" I couldn't possibly tell you that on 'I don't Know Day'! Yes, it does sound like I've been hitting the mushrooms, but the weirder the better! Next week, when you can recall 120422 you'll know where I'm coming from ;)

  by Neil on 2006-08-31 12:24:09

• Damn it Neil, what have you done to my head -- I *do* remember it! Gonna look into this crazy voodoo magic :)

  by aral on 2006-08-31 12:46:52

• Great post, although of course every day is I Don't Know Day. :) I don't know how to quickly convert C code to Java, but I'm learning. Slowly.

  by Brian Deitte on 2006-08-31 13:37:21

• I don't know whether I can still use my external hd with a mac w/o having to get all of my data off and reformat it to FAT32 (it's using NTFS). Or if there is a better way since FAT32 has a strict "I don't know" policy on storing larger than 4GB files ... and I'm afraid it won't be joining us today in finding out ;) ... ... but in the spirit of "I don't know"-day, I'm going to figure it out today ...

  by Heidi on 2006-08-31 13:56:26

• I don’t know why I can't quit smoking or I won't quit smoking ?

  by Andrej on 2006-08-31 14:20:45

• I don't know the best way to setup a system for my client to add user accounts and a user-based content management system. I don't even know one way. I better find out.

  by LEE on 2006-08-31 14:23:04

• Top post Aral, what was your inspiration for this? I don't know what I want to "don't know" for today in order to commit some time to knowing it tomorrow :S Dan :P

  by DannyT on 2006-08-31 17:57:26

• Hey Dan -- I don't know (no pun intended!) It's just something that I've been thinking about and had been wanting to talk about for a while. Just one of those patterns I've been seeing :)

  by aral on 2006-08-31 19:12:42

• I don't know where the extensive amount of snot in my nose is coming from. Man I love idon'tknow-day! ..don't know why.

  by Ruben on 2006-08-31 20:13:25

• I don't know why I didn't read this post earlier. I also don't know why I'm still awake at 1:20 in the morning reading your blog Aral. That was fun at least; sorry my comment wasn't officially on I don't know day.

  by Chris Allen on 2006-09-01 05:21:42

• Heidi... reformat the drive as HFS and install MacDrive on any Windows PC you need to boot it on. A good idea is to partition it into two drives, maybe 1GB FAT32 and the rest as HFS . This means you can put the MacDrive installer on the FAT32 partition and then access the rest of your files! And a response to Aral... the more things I learn, the more I realise I know nothing!

  by Adz on 2006-09-01 08:48:05

• I suspect its not possible to get Parallels to share windows over my 2 screens, but to be honest 'I don't know'?

  by Tink on 2006-09-01 15:11:45

• Hey Chris -- every day is I Don't Know day! :) Tink: If there's a way, I don't know it. AFAIK, there isn't.

  by aral on 2006-09-01 20:36:21

• aral said "Hey Chris — every day is I Don’t Know day!" haha, well I didn't know that either!

  by Chris Allen on 2006-09-02 04:26:25

• Do you sound stupid?... Okay, right off the bat I need to admit I am annoyed. So if there's a sharpness to the tone, you know why. It's not you. But out of my annoyance comes a great marketing tip. I have decided I...

  by The Marketing Minute on 2006-10-28 19:33:43

• Thanks for this wonderful post! As a female I know that smoking is more harmful to me than it is for men.

  by Quit Smoking on 2008-10-08 20:40:00