Many useful things in our modern world are “free”: in software development you especially rely on a panoply of information (particularly when grappling your way out of a bind) pulled straight from the Internet. For “free”.
When you are a growing child your parents sacrifice their time for your benefit, to increase your skills. Society expects the same from you when you age: folks wish that you contribute as much as you have received.
Code snippets, online help, device drivers, shareware. In the end you only gain the equivalent amount of value from the public commons as you yourself have contributed. This manifests itself through subtle activities that reveal their knowledge to you by their methodology and yet that methodology won’t instantiate until you create your awareness upon it through researching your own contributions.
Help your future self therefore by paying it forward: give back to the professional world the same as you would your own children.
