In 1989 I Asked The Dumbest Question Ever, But...
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Josh always tells me to get my Geek on! :rolleyes:
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
In this case, perhaps it's more appropriate to get your Geek off. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] All of life is just a big rambling blog post.
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I'm with you 100%. I have an article for Mentors and Mentorees here.[^] Here is a quote from the article: Tip for Mentorees (men’tôr-e) 1. (n.) One having a mentor; the beneficiary of a mentorship. Do your own homework. Before posting questions or emailing, please use the free resources available like Google, Yahoo, Code Project, etc. Secret; those mentors hide information in books too. This will help our mentors keep their sanity. Think, RTFM (Read The Free Manual) and you’ll do fine. Thanks for your comments.
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
Karl Shifflett wrote:
RTFM (Read The Free Manual)
Not quite what I learned it stood for! :-D
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
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In this case, perhaps it's more appropriate to get your Geek off. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] All of life is just a big rambling blog post.
Thanks for setting the record straight. Don't want anyone to go away disappointed. :cool:
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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Karl Shifflett wrote:
RTFM (Read The Free Manual)
Not quite what I learned it stood for! :-D
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
Dalek Dave wrote:
Not quite what I learned it stood for!
must be a slow morning, I almost spewed coffee when I saw "free" and I did when I saw yours. Not quite how I learned it either. Of course it reminds me of the Air TV version of Blue-Thunder and their quickly redubbed version of "JAFO" which no longer even sounds like the actor when it is dubbed over... :laugh: as if poor dubbing doesn't point out exactly what was edited and what the word most likely is.... :laugh:
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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I was thinking the other day, how did I ever get by without the Internet and Google back in those days. We developers are very blessed in this day and age where so many share their code, techniques, work arounds, etc. Anyone can look up answers in just a few seconds for FREE.
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
Karl Shifflett wrote:
I was thinking the other day, how did I ever get by without the Internet and Google back in those days. We developers are very blessed in this day and age where so many share their code, techniques, work arounds, etc.
Several years ago, I worked in a software house in the south of England. There were probably about 50 developers there, in several different teams working on different projects. At the time, there was one computer that was connected to the Internet via ISDN, but no-one used it, partly because it was right next to the Managers desk, but mostly because there wasn't any actual need to use it. After a while, each developer became a sort of expert in their particular area, learning from each other as necessary. After about 6 months of working there, I remember being asked by a long-time contractor how to do certain things in the new windows 95 ListControl. It was quite a good feeling to know that I was finally being recognized as the "go-to" guy for ListControls! Also, the quarterly arrival of the MSDN CD's was a source of great excitement. Packed with new and exciting code samples, techniques, tools, libraries etc. Whenever a new MSDN library was installed on the server, there were invariably network problems as everyone tried to access it at once!
Sunrise Wallpaper Project | The StartPage Randomizer | The Windows Cheerleader
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
Karl Shifflett wrote:
Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...
I believe this should be one of our Core Values here.
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
Karl Shifflett wrote:
Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...
Hmmm....First off, I don't think there is dumb question. It is the the circumstance under which the question is asked. I am sure if someone popped his head to the lounge today and asked, "hey guys, I am learning this stuff, can you explain to me "what is compile?", you will see an enthusiastic crowed showering him/her with helpful answers.:cool: of course the question needs to be posted on the right forum. On the other hand, if some one screams at the top of their voice, "I NEED ...." well you know what you going to get. :wtf: So, it is not the question per se, it is the attitude and the context under which the question is framed. In your case the question was of that of curiosity. In fact your action clearly demonstrated it when you went back home. ;)
/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
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Karl Shifflett wrote:
Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...
I believe this should be one of our Core Values here.
code-frog wrote:
I believe this should be one of our Core Values here.
Not just here but in life.
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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Karl Shifflett wrote:
Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...
Hmmm....First off, I don't think there is dumb question. It is the the circumstance under which the question is asked. I am sure if someone popped his head to the lounge today and asked, "hey guys, I am learning this stuff, can you explain to me "what is compile?", you will see an enthusiastic crowed showering him/her with helpful answers.:cool: of course the question needs to be posted on the right forum. On the other hand, if some one screams at the top of their voice, "I NEED ...." well you know what you going to get. :wtf: So, it is not the question per se, it is the attitude and the context under which the question is framed. In your case the question was of that of curiosity. In fact your action clearly demonstrated it when you went back home. ;)
/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
I think we have a consensus today. :cool:
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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I think we have a consensus today. :cool:
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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BTW, what is compile? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Karl Shifflett wrote:
I think we have a consensus today.
I'd rough morning today... thank you for making my day.... :)
/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
Glad I could be a part in your day. :) May the rest be trouble free:cool:
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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BTW, what is compile? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Karl Shifflett wrote:
I think we have a consensus today.
I'd rough morning today... thank you for making my day.... :)
/* I can C */ // or !C Yusuf
Yusuf wrote:
BTW, what is compile?
That's when you take the source code for your COM objects, print it out onto hard copy, and pile all the dead trees together.
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
Notice that the key point in this is that a question caused you to dig deeper, learn more, and challenge yourself. When a less experienced developer (and to a certain point, I'm one of them!) shows these traits, pick them up and hug them and nurture them as much as you can, because the talent to learn how to program and to do it well is so much more important than the "talent" to just bang away on a keyboard all day. If I met a developer who asked me, "what is compile?" and I told them what it means, and their eyes lit up and you could see the possibilities dawning on them, I would do everything within my means to encourage and help them grow. But if I met a developer who said, "tell me what compile does" and I told them and they shrugged and copied/pasted my words into their report that's due in two days and never bothered with it again unless it came up on a test, I would do my best to railroad them out of the profession as quickly as possible.
Please don't bother me... I'm hacking right now. Don't look at me like that - doesn't anybody remember what "hacking" really means? :sigh:
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Notice that the key point in this is that a question caused you to dig deeper, learn more, and challenge yourself. When a less experienced developer (and to a certain point, I'm one of them!) shows these traits, pick them up and hug them and nurture them as much as you can, because the talent to learn how to program and to do it well is so much more important than the "talent" to just bang away on a keyboard all day. If I met a developer who asked me, "what is compile?" and I told them what it means, and their eyes lit up and you could see the possibilities dawning on them, I would do everything within my means to encourage and help them grow. But if I met a developer who said, "tell me what compile does" and I told them and they shrugged and copied/pasted my words into their report that's due in two days and never bothered with it again unless it came up on a test, I would do my best to railroad them out of the profession as quickly as possible.
Please don't bother me... I'm hacking right now. Don't look at me like that - doesn't anybody remember what "hacking" really means? :sigh:
Robert, You hit the nail on the head, bulls-eye, etc. :cool: Something they should teach in school, attitude and hunger will take you anywere you want to go. I'm speaking at a local high school soon on the computer field. I think I'll go back through this Lounge posting, and put together a hand out for the students. Maybe call it, "What is really important" or "Model This!" Have a great day.
Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
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Karl Shifflett wrote:
RTFM (Read The Free Manual)
Not quite what I learned it stood for! :-D
------------------------------------ I try to appear cooler, by calling him Euler.
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There was a dude on IRC today talking about a problem he said he'd spent half a day on, I took the 3 key words from his question and popped them into google ... out pops the answer as result 1 ... *sigh* Edit: I suppose the answer might poop out of google :P but I changed it to pops as I intended it to be lol
modified on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 9:28:10 AM
A lot of the answers from Google (and others) are pooped out...
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
Tracking back from my hebrew programming community: http://www.fresh.co.il/vBulletin/showthread.php?p=2707970#post2707970[^]
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
Hear hear. I'm (in gamer terms anyway) a total newb with a lot of languages. I have a very (very) general understanding of VB and C++, a little more in-depth knowledge of PHP, ASP and ASP.net, and pretty strong understanding of Javascript. I do web design, so the next logical step is to head into web development and make entire interactive applications, rather than just front ends. I'm more than a little frustrated, though with the number of brick walls I receive when I ask for tips and troubleshooting. I don't get it from everyone (by the way, thank you to all of you who've helped me grow so far) but I'd say about 75% of the people who even respond to my questions tend to have a very negative "if you can't do it now, you'll never be able to. Just give up" attitude towards me. I just want to thank you and everyone else out there with that attitude of cutting some slack for the new guys. As long as the guy asking you for help is actually trying to learn (rather than just copying your code), it can be pretty rewarding to help out. That goes for anything, not just programming. -joequincy (there's only one)
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
I can't remember the last time I compiled an app. In my programming career I've picked and used languages that don't need the developer to compile; Visual Basic, VBScript in ASP, C# in ASP.NET and now Ruby on Rails and JavaScript. And to be honest even the times I have used C++ and other languages that need a compile for the app. to run I've done it through an IDE like VS that makes "compiling" so simple that most of the details are hidden. With all those kids growing up coding web-sites I imagine "what is compile?" could become a frequent question.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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Fellow Lounger's, In 1989 I purchased the book, Learn QuickBasic. It came with a code editor. You could type in your code and run the program. After I learned the language, I wanted to use Btrieve as my record manager. So I got the Btrieve manual and read the instructions for using their libraries. But I couldn't figure out how to use the libraries with the Learn QuickBasic editor. So, I called up Novell tech support. The lady I spoke with told me to link their library in when I compile my application. My question to her was, "
what is compile?" Some would have burned me on the front lawn for such a stupid question. But sometimes (not always) it is a matter of experience, training and context. You see, Learn QuickBasic didn't compile, it ran inside the editor. So from a Learn QuickBasic perspective, it was a valid question. End Result That day I went back to the store and purchased QB 4.5 and learned how to link in libraries and compile an application. Just a year later, Novell came out with Extended Operations for Btrieve. All their examples were in C. Novell couldn't figure out how to tell their QB 4.5 and BC7 customers, how to use the new Extended Operations feature, because Extended Operations required using C UNIONS. UNIONS are not in QB 4.5 or BC7. A very short time after this came out, I was invited to Novell's class on Extended Operations, they even waived my entrance fee. I got to the class and the room was filled with C programmers. After attending the first day of class and learning about UNIONS, I went back to my room and figured out how to do this in QB 4.5 and BC7. In fact the solution was so simple; just use an LSET statement to move the returned data into another data structure. You could also use $BCopy but Novell only wanted standard QB 4.5 statements. Novell wrote their documentation, I got credit and everyone moved on. And this from the guy who asked the dumbest question ever, "what is compile?" Maybe we should cut some of the less experienced developers just a little slack...Cheers, KarlMy Blog | Mole's Home Page | How To Create Screen Capture Videos For Your ArticlesJust a grain of sand on t
I think this is a great post. I'm not an expert developer, just a beginner really, but I do know a thing or two about knowledge (having studied epistemology in grad school). For all those who see Google as the perfect repository of knowledge...it's not always that simple. Have you considered that in some cases the person asking the question may not even have enough knowledge to know the answer when he/she sees it? I also think it's wrong to assume that said person did not do a search, especially if they know at least a little about what they're talking about. Also consider that to even do an effective level of search you have to have a certain level of knowledge of what you're looking for. It's possible that someone has just stumbled into a completely new domain of knowledge and isn't even aware of it. Or maybe they need a fresh pair of eyes...we've probably all had an experience where we were looking for something that was right under our noses, we just didn't see it for whatever reason... I'm not saying there aren't lazy people out there who would rather just waste your time. Try teaching remedial algebra in college sometime ;P . Just don't assume right off the bat that the person asking the question is one of those people. Just for the record...I personally always exhaust all other resources before asking anywhere, usually spending hours if not days or longer looking...so if I ever post a 'dumb' question, please keep that in mind :-D . BW