Gold members are abusing this site

Single Step Debugger

Probably the programmers are frustrating exactly from the fact that the questions are too “simple”. The answers of these questions are in the books and/or universities…not in the internet forum, even if this forum name is CP.

The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word.

Paul Conrad

Bassam Saoud wrote:

seems you need a masters degree in computer science to post a question !

No so. One just needs at least half a brain to post a question. It is the vague and lame questions that can be likely answered by a quick google search that chap me.

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon

Paul Conrad

Bassam Saoud wrote:

cross post, but does that have to be mentioned 10 times by 10 different members?

Sure, more the merrier ;P

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon

Leslie Sanford

snorkie wrote:

I didn't get the opinion that the first poster even tried to look it up first.

I thought Pete's[^] reply was spot on. The poster is having a difficult time answering an interview question apparently asking about his experience with delegates. So instead of experimenting with them himself to gain experience, he asks other developers for their experience with delegates. I wonder how that's suppose to help him in his next interview. "Well, it's funny you asked about my experience with delegates. I don't have much, but there's this guy at Code Project who could tell you all about them." "Ok, fine. Give us his number."

modified on Friday, July 25, 2008 6:50 PM

Christian Graus

This site is full of people asking idiotic questions. Any book on delegates, in explaining how they work, will have real world examples. Having said that, I'd agree that this question is half reasonable, it's just that people are so jaded from the flood of 'how do I send an email' questions.

Christian Graus No longer a Microsoft MVP, but still happy to answer your questions.

Christian Graus

A bad question is one that can't be answered. Like 'when I click on a data grid, I get an object somehing exception HELP !!! URGENT !!!!'

Bassam Saoud wrote:

could have been easily been answered if there was a will to help

Answering the really easy questions doesn't help. I am not really answering much anymore b/c I get downvoted all the time for trying to lead a horse to water instead of just throwing water at them, too many people here don't want to learn, they want someone to do their job for them, perpetually.

Christian Graus No longer a Microsoft MVP, but still happy to answer your questions.

Shog9 0

Bassam Saoud wrote:

Thats what we were thought in schools anyways!

That's not what i took away. A good question is one that deserves a good answer. A good question demands a good answer, setting the stage for it in such a way that, once answered, the answer immediately looks at home, settled in and comfortable, the two together halves of a now-complete whole. A bad question collects bad answers like a dead rat collects flies, creating something degrading to the answerer, insulting to the questioner, and offensive to any third-party reader such as yourself.

Citizen 20.1.01

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

Christian Graus

When people ask the same questions over and over, and refuse to learn, or to do any research of their own, what should we do ? This is a free service, our reward is seeing people get better, I'd have thought.

Christian Graus No longer a Microsoft MVP, but still happy to answer your questions.

Shog9 0

Since you went to the trouble of bringing in actual examples, i'll do the same. Here are two recent questions from the WebDev forum: Firefox is the odd one out[^] This question is phrased poorly - he's obviously frustrated because code that worked in IE doesn't work in Firefox, and lets that get the better of him and his question. Still, he provides enough information to give a clear answer: the relevant code that worked for him in IE. I'm not sure that i was able to solve his problem, but i do feel confident in the ability of my reply to correct the problem he described. Setting style to a div's overflow scroll bar[^] I'll probably never know what this poor soul's real question was. He managed to state it in such a vague, imprecise manner that i felt compelled to fall back on a humorously literal interpretation for my first reply. He takes another chance at it, but again throws away the opportunity to actually describe the problem he's seeing. I'm forced to assume that he is working with such a poor understanding of the systems involved that when his cargo-cult efforts to achieve results went awry he was left without any clear idea of even what it was he was trying to do. Or perhaps he was simply too lazy to bother typing up a description of what he saw on the screen before him. It's questions like this, and the folk asking them, that suck all the life from the forums.

Citizen 20.1.01

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

Yusuf

Bassam Saoud wrote:

It seems you need a masters degree in computer science to post a question

No, you need just a little bit of sanity to ask question. Many times, I start writing a question, mainly on CP forums and I end up canceling it all together. Why? In the process of writing the question, I realize what I need and figure out what the solution to my question is. What is annoying is that, most of the questions, it does not look they even did any effort of understanding what the question is all about. come on, if some one does not understand what a delegate is, how can you expect him/her to answer it in in interview. at least that should be a wake up call to go and learn what in the world is a delegate. I don't think it will be learned to throwing a question on CP. It is perfectly ok for someone to ask a question something like I am trying to learn about delegates, any pointers, websites ..... or I did read such and such and I need to understand/learn about .... you see this shows some effort on the questioners side. Just my 2 cents.

Yusuf

Yusuf

well said. Good Points

Yusuf

Oakman

Bassam Saoud wrote:

And none answered the poor guy's question

Are you under the impression that it's a requirement that all questions asked in the forums must be answered?

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface

Scott Dorman

Bassam Saoud wrote:

could have been easily been answered if there was a will to help.

I think there is definately a will to help. I think the problem is that, as Shog pointed out, there is a general apathy and lack of willingness to do even a minimun amount of prior research and an expectation that people will simply hand out an answer.

Bassam Saoud wrote:

and whats up with the Good Question/Bad Question buttons? I thought all questions are good.Thats what we were thought in schools anyways! It seems you need a masters degree in computer science to post a question !

The Good/Bad buttons are an attempt at simplifying the voting on questions. In general, all questions are good but that doesn't mean all questions are well asked. I think that is the intent behind those buttons.

Scott Dorman

Microsoft® MVP - Visual C# | MCPD President - Tampa Bay IASA [Blog][Articles][Forum Guidelines]

Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai

Andy_L_J

You are right Christian. I generally suck at writing good code, but before I post a question in the forums I exhaust all avenues of search I can think of before asking. That and my morbid fear of public humiliation generally ensure I stick by the rules :-D

I don't speak Idiot - please talk slowly and clearly

killabyte

true enough but saying nothing is easier than flaming is it not.

Shog9 0

So then, your answer to the problem of apathetic queries is... more apathy? :-\

Citizen 20.1.01

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

killabyte · Citizen 20.1.01

and it reduces the memory requirements of the site,by reducing the number of crap posts wasting countless bytes of server space!!!!! that is something you should be concerned about ;P

Shog9 0

*checks his post count* Naw, prolly too late to start caring about wasting bytes on the site. :-O

Citizen 20.1.01

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

killabyte · Citizen 20.1.01

you guys can hold out till we get the huge solid state HDD in the pipelines 20TB PCs here we come

Paul Conrad

Oakman wrote:

all questions asked in the forums must be answered?

Not the dumb questions or ones that have a very obvious answer that can be found with a little effort.

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon