Finding the Answer: Researching Tech Questions

1) Library. County libraries often are 10 years out of date. Depends on when the last bond referendum passed and what the head librarian thinks about the relative value of tech books versus everything else.

2) Bookstore. Expensive habit. At $40 a pop tech books are not a poor mans hobby. Plus, for many technologies, it is not clear if they will be worth the time or money.

3) Internet. Takes a long time to search, lots of dead ends, opportunities for distraction.

4) Experts-Exchange. Subscription Fee, but often has remarkably good answers.

5) Subject specific forum, usenet, etc. Quality varies wildly. Some questions go unanswered for long peroids of time.

6) Friends and coworkers. Skillsets are likely to be complementary, so if you are the DBA, you won’t get a lot of database advice from the expert in message queues. Instant feedback.

7) Webcasts. Tedious and boring but they do a good job of squishing a lot of technical data into your brain.

8) Safari. Digital books store. Costs money, but addresses some of the problems with tech books from physical libraries.

9) Knowledge Bases, FAQs. Microsoft has a fantastic one. At the low end, you have FAQ pages, and the high end you have massive databases with RSS feeds for subscription.