In a world where everyone’s pretending to be an expert…
I found myself whispering Denning’s words like a prayer.
Not because I had just started in tech. Not because I was a student.
But because I was—and still am—the solo IT Administrator at a public utility. The guy behind the firewall, under the server rack, resetting your password, hardening your domain controller, migrating your Active Directory, managing your GIS, fixing your VPN… all before lunch.
I live in a world where nobody else is coming.
So when Peter J. Denning published The Beginner’s Creed in the Communications of the ACM (July 2017), it wasn’t just a column. It was scripture.
Who Is Peter J. Denning?
Before we get too far, let’s get this straight: Denning isn’t some tech influencer dabbling in mindfulness between LinkedIn growth hacks.
He’s the guy behind virtual memory. The former ACM president. A computing pioneer and lifelong educator who’s spent more time thinking about how people learn than most of us have spent configuring routers.
When Denning writes about being a beginner, it’s not performative humility. It’s battle-tested philosophy.
“I am a beginner. I am entering a new game about which I know nothing.”
—Peter J. Denning, The Beginner’s Creed, CACM, Vol. 60, No. 7, July 2017
Why It Hit Me So Hard
Because it’s easy to be humble when you’re surrounded by a team of engineers, managers, or support techs. You ask for help. You defer. You escalate.
But when you’re the team? There’s no backup. You either figure it out or it becomes a problem with your name on it.
That’s what makes this creed so profound: it gave me permission to be what I already was—but was too afraid to say out loud.
A beginner. Again. And again. And again.
“I Am Entering a New Game…”
Denning calls every new learning situation a “game” — one where you don’t yet know the rules, the players, or the point system.
It’s not just metaphor. It’s exactly what it feels like when:
- A vendor drops a new cloud platform on your lap.
- Microsoft changes licensing models mid-deployment.
- ArcGIS Enterprise updates its workflow and nothing works like it used to.
- Or your Windows Server decides that DNS replication is optional today.
Every new scenario is a new game. And guess what? There’s no tutorial.
The basic terminology
The basic rules
The basic moves of action
The basic strategies
That’s where you start. Whether you’re fresh out of school or two decades deep.
“I Will Be Confused. I Will Be Overwhelmed.”
You don’t talk about this part in meetings. You keep a straight face while quietly Googling acronyms you pretend to understand. You debug issues at 2 a.m. and hope they stay buried in the logs.
Denning doesn’t sugarcoat it:
While I am learning these things I may feel various negative reactions:
• Overwhelmed at how much there is to learn
• Insecure that I do not know what to do
• Inadequate that I lack the capacity to do this
• Frustrated and discouraged that my progress is so slow
• Angry that I have been given insufficient guidance
• Anxious that I will never perform up to expectations on which my career depends
• Embarrassed that everyone can see my mistakes
If you work in tech and haven’t felt all of that? You’re either lying or you’ve never deployed in production.
“I Will Experience Moments of Despair…”
When you’re solo, there’s no safety net. You mess up, you clean it up. You get stuck, you unstick yourself.
And some days, you really do want to quit.
But Denning reminds us: those moments don’t make you a failure. They make you a beginner.
“But these moods are part of being a beginner. It does not serve my goal and ambition to dwell in them.”
“Instead…”
Here’s where Denning shifts gears—from acknowledgment to action.
If I make a mistake, I will ask what lesson does this teach.
If I make a discovery, I will celebrate my aha! moment.
If I feel alone, I will remember that I have many friends ready to help.
If I am stuck, I will ask for help from my teachers.
These aren’t platitudes. They’re survival techniques.
Every mistake I’ve made in production has taught me more than any certification ever could. And when something finally works after hours of trial and error? You better believe I’m celebrating it.
“Over Time…”
Denning outlines the arc of transformation:
I will make fewer mistakes.
I will gain confidence in my abilities.
I will need less guidance from my teachers and friends.
I will gain familiarity with the game.
I will be able to have intelligent conversations with others in the game.
I will not cause breakdowns for promises that I lack the competence to keep.
If you’ve ever survived a server migration, rebuilt a DNS hierarchy, or implemented a full backup strategy from scratch—you know this arc.
Not overnight. Not magically. Just through showing up. Repeating. Learning.
“I Have an Ambition…”
I have an ambition to become competent, perhaps even proficient or expert in this game. But for now,
I am a beginner.
That’s the line that stuck with me the most.
It’s not false modesty. It’s honest alignment.
Being a beginner isn’t the opposite of being experienced. It’s what makes experience possible.
In my world—where I wear every IT hat in the department—this isn’t just a creed. It’s how I survive.
Works Cited
Denning, P. J. (2017). The Beginner’s Creed. Communications of the ACM, 60(7), p. 34.
https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/the-beginners-creed