Ah, this is interesting, because I've recently dabbled a bit in RF. My path went like this:
1) Interested in doing something with RF, don't know much about it, know that people say it's black magic.
2) Do some research... Ah, this is a pretty deep topic, and it might take a while to develop the necessary intuition.
3) Become competent enough to solve my immediate problem, recognize that it is a extensive field in which there is a lot of specialized practical knowledge that could be acquired.
4) Accept that I have higher life priorities than to go down the RF rabbit hole, but feel that I could learn it if I wanted to invest the time. No longer feels like black magic.
I think there is a distinction between fields like deep learning and RF, where most of the information is public if you know where to look, and say, cryptanalysis or nuclear weapon design or even stage magic, where the details and practical knowledge of the state-of-the-art are more locked behind closed doors. And for a field that you're not familiar with, it can be initially unclear which category it falls into. I think the existence of public conferences on the topic is a good indicator, though.
1) Interested in doing something with RF, don't know much about it, know that people say it's black magic.
2) Do some research... Ah, this is a pretty deep topic, and it might take a while to develop the necessary intuition.
3) Become competent enough to solve my immediate problem, recognize that it is a extensive field in which there is a lot of specialized practical knowledge that could be acquired.
4) Accept that I have higher life priorities than to go down the RF rabbit hole, but feel that I could learn it if I wanted to invest the time. No longer feels like black magic.
I think there is a distinction between fields like deep learning and RF, where most of the information is public if you know where to look, and say, cryptanalysis or nuclear weapon design or even stage magic, where the details and practical knowledge of the state-of-the-art are more locked behind closed doors. And for a field that you're not familiar with, it can be initially unclear which category it falls into. I think the existence of public conferences on the topic is a good indicator, though.