[ELaser]

I've seen this apparent *gap* an awful lot over the years, Mach3 was the same when it started out, and while it has evolved a *lot* it can still be a steep learning curve for a brand newbie to the whole thing.

Generally speaking I found there were two broad camps of people.

Group A - they had at least as much fun building the machine and getting to it work just so as they ever did actually producing anything with it.

Group B - they only reason they were building was because they could not either afford or justify the outlay on a fully set up does everything plug and go machine, they had little or no interest in the build.

I have never really seen much successful bridging between these two groups, and if I found myself in Group A I tried to find a Group A guy to go to and pester, and if I found myself in Group B I tried to find a Group B guy yo go and pester.

Some of the most frustrating times I had where when I was in Group B and the only people I could find were in Group A, and no matter how helpful they seemed to be or tried to be at the time, those in Group A who suggested that all I needed to do was take an existing open source linux driver for a very similar piece of hardware and re-write it to work with the hardware I had, which with my coding skills was like asking me to fly across a river by flapping my arms.

Eventually I came to a conclusion that I didn't like much, so it took a long time to accept, if I find myself in Group B nowadays I go and find someone in Group A who is actually producing and selling a product that I can just buy and solve my problem, inevitably it costs a lot more than I wanted to pay to solve my problem, but a lot less than the true commercial alternative I couldn't afford at all.

I just wish I could have all the hundreds of hours back that I spent trying to avoid spending ten bucks....lol

[Rolf_K]

I've seen this apparent *gap* an awful lot over the years, Mach3 was the same when it started out, and while it has evolved a *lot* it can still be a steep learning curve for a brand newbie to the whole thing.

Generally speaking I found there were two broad camps of people.

Group A - they had at least as much fun building the machine and getting to it work just so as they ever did actually producing anything with it.

Group B - they only reason they were building was because they could not either afford or justify the outlay on a fully set up does everything plug and go machine, they had little or no interest in the build.

I have never really seen much successful bridging between these two groups, and if I found myself in Group A I tried to find a Group A guy to go to and pester, and if I found myself in Group B I tried to find a Group B guy yo go and pester.

Some of the most frustrating times I had where when I was in Group B and the only people I could find were in Group A, and no matter how helpful they seemed to be or tried to be at the time, those in Group A who suggested that all I needed to do was take an existing open source linux driver for a very similar piece of hardware and re-write it to work with the hardware I had, which with my coding skills was like asking me to fly across a river by flapping my arms.

Eventually I came to a conclusion that I didn't like much, so it took a long time to accept, if I find myself in Group B nowadays I go and find someone in Group A who is actually producing and selling a product that I can just buy and solve my problem, inevitably it costs a lot more than I wanted to pay to solve my problem, but a lot less than the true commercial alternative I couldn't afford at all.

I just wish I could have all the hundreds of hours back that I spent trying to avoid spending ten bucks....lol

I think you hit the nail on the head!

[buddydog]

The bridging of group B into group A is "passion". With passion a person of normal intelligence moves from B to A in about twenty consecutive hours.

[Retroplayer]

The bridging of group B into group A is "passion". With passion a person of normal intelligence moves from B to A in about twenty consecutive hours.

And of course, our examples show it is possible to transition from Group A to Group B as well. For example, I know HOW to fix my own car, but now that I am no longer a poor college student, I usually pay others to do it. Cheaper for me than to maintain the tools and honestly, I just don't enjoy working on my car. lol