Ego of programmers
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midnight_ wrote:
Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question?
Because sometimes someone is clearly just looking for you to do all their work for them. Seriously, expecting an answer to a question is a two way process - show us what you've attempted so far, and we may be able to help.
midnight_ wrote:
If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise?
Sometimes the advice you give is not the advice the poster wants. In a lot of cases, the response you are going to get is an attempt to tease out what the exact problem you are facing is; what code you currently have; what exceptions you are getting and so on. Another point is that you have to think about where you're asking your questions. If you post a programming question in the lounge, you will be flamed. If you ask an ASP.NET question in the C# forum, you'll be advised that you should have asked it in the ASP.NET forum (after all that's where the ASP.NET experts are). If you cross post a question, you will get downvoted and hammered from others - there's an etiquette. If you take time to learn how to use the forums then you'll hopefully get answers. Start by reading the stickies at the top of the relevant forum.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easierPete O'Hanlon wrote:
If you take time to learn how to use the forums then you'll hopefully get answers.
If only there was some respect for the people behind the screens. But hey. it's the internet. Nobody knows who I am. I don't care about those who might be willing to assist me. I NEED CODEZ URGENTZ! :doh:
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There are no egos here, we're all just excellent. [Except for Griff, he knows nothing and copies everything from other people claiming it's his own. No one like Griff.]
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol "Nagy, you have won the internets." - Keith Barrow
Damn! I've been sussed!
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
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All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
Programmers are people - the attitude you describe is not limited to just us! Not by a long chalk... :sigh:
midnight_ wrote:
Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question?
Been answered already.
midnight_ wrote:
If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise?
Because sometimes the best thing to do is give a gentle rebuke, and point them in the direction they need to go. A lot of the down-voter questions are homework, and giving the OP "the solution" does nothing useful, except in the very short term to get his assignment submitted with no effort on his part. But in the long term, it's often harmful, because future work is based on the OP understanding the current work fully - and if his homework shows he does understand it, then it need no recap or explaining in a different way. As a result, the gap between what the student can do and what the tutor has been shown he can do widens, until at the final exam, the student suddenly finds he knows nothing, can't ask for help and fails the course. Just telling him to at least try it himself in the first place and ask if he does get stuck can get them "over the hump" and actually understanding the subject instead of coasting on our backs. Having said that, I very rarely downvote anyway, and nearly always say why when I do.
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
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All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
On most "programming help" sites, there's a general atmosphere of a "Temple of the Gods", where lowly peasants can come and beg for answers. The gods do as they please, the peasants must know their place and grovel and beg and do their best to please the gods as well as they can, or risk the wrath of the gods. You can be accepted as a god eventually, but only if you agree with their "average opinion", for example - performance is never important. - when somehow it is, theoretical big O's are more important than wall-clock time. - fracturing a big but simple to understand method into a dozen small ones that make no sense on their own is a Good Thing - any usage of goto for any reason is a crime punishable by death, even if the alternative is verbose and obfuscates control flow. - Object Orientation is the One True Religion.
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On most "programming help" sites, there's a general atmosphere of a "Temple of the Gods", where lowly peasants can come and beg for answers. The gods do as they please, the peasants must know their place and grovel and beg and do their best to please the gods as well as they can, or risk the wrath of the gods. You can be accepted as a god eventually, but only if you agree with their "average opinion", for example - performance is never important. - when somehow it is, theoretical big O's are more important than wall-clock time. - fracturing a big but simple to understand method into a dozen small ones that make no sense on their own is a Good Thing - any usage of goto for any reason is a crime punishable by death, even if the alternative is verbose and obfuscates control flow. - Object Orientation is the One True Religion.
Luckily we're not like that. :innocentWhistle:
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol "Nagy, you have won the internets." - Keith Barrow
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Damn! I've been sussed!
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
Years ago mate, years ago. :laugh:
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol "Nagy, you have won the internets." - Keith Barrow
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Luckily we're not like that. :innocentWhistle:
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol "Nagy, you have won the internets." - Keith Barrow
Not all of us, no. But SAK? Hmmm.... :laugh:
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
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Not all of us, no. But SAK? Hmmm.... :laugh:
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
But, but, but... I thought he was your friend. :laugh:
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol "Nagy, you have won the internets." - Keith Barrow
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All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
Yes, there are some mean m....[bleep]....s people out there. But it is no different with any kind of people, programmers or not.
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All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
Thanks for your posts - it calms me to see, that there're still people which try to keep a good quality of knowledge exchange. (dont wann measure all the same) I agree that homework-requests are senseless. But sometimes a beginner is grateful for some lines of code or a hint to an article. So the question is - is it already a do-work-for-me-request when they're just asking for a small chunk of code? I mean, if it would take too much time, I would indeed refer him to a similar solution. "temple-of-gods" is actually hitting the point.
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Thanks for your posts - it calms me to see, that there're still people which try to keep a good quality of knowledge exchange. (dont wann measure all the same) I agree that homework-requests are senseless. But sometimes a beginner is grateful for some lines of code or a hint to an article. So the question is - is it already a do-work-for-me-request when they're just asking for a small chunk of code? I mean, if it would take too much time, I would indeed refer him to a similar solution. "temple-of-gods" is actually hitting the point.
Simply put, you can normally see how much effort someone has put in by the way a question is phrased. Respond accordingly.
Reality is an illusion caused by a lack of alcohol "Nagy, you have won the internets." - Keith Barrow
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Not all of us, no. But SAK? Hmmm.... :laugh:
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
If my last foray into Q&A was anything to go by, SAK was all of us. Disclaimer: this was quite a while ago.
PB 369,783 wrote:
I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]
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All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
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If my last foray into Q&A was anything to go by, SAK was all of us. Disclaimer: this was quite a while ago.
PB 369,783 wrote:
I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]
There are some good, helpful people there. Unfortunately, there are also a number of people who vote down anything they don't understand, or can't read perfectly, or that is too simple for them. And others who seem only to be there to get rep points, regardless of the answer they give. :sigh: But there are some goodies - I wish Luc hadn't departed but had moved to QA...
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
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midnight_ wrote:
Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question?
Because sometimes someone is clearly just looking for you to do all their work for them. Seriously, expecting an answer to a question is a two way process - show us what you've attempted so far, and we may be able to help.
midnight_ wrote:
If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise?
Sometimes the advice you give is not the advice the poster wants. In a lot of cases, the response you are going to get is an attempt to tease out what the exact problem you are facing is; what code you currently have; what exceptions you are getting and so on. Another point is that you have to think about where you're asking your questions. If you post a programming question in the lounge, you will be flamed. If you ask an ASP.NET question in the C# forum, you'll be advised that you should have asked it in the ASP.NET forum (after all that's where the ASP.NET experts are). If you cross post a question, you will get downvoted and hammered from others - there's an etiquette. If you take time to learn how to use the forums then you'll hopefully get answers. Start by reading the stickies at the top of the relevant forum.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easierQuote:
show us what you've attempted so far, and we may be able to help.
It's also about trying to get people to think in the right way to solve problems. Sure, with the right information I can detail the exact solution. But if I give some hints and pointers, get you to answer the questions you should have asked yourself, then I may be doing more than just solving this one problem. I hope I can be teaching you how to think through and solve problems in general. The lack of troubleshooting skills is not just apparent with novices in Q&A. I work with some experienced, senior people who struggle when it comes to problem diagnosis.
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All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
midnight_ wrote:
however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous.
If this is a "classic" dev, this is a symptom of too great an ego, rather than a lack. To answer your points:
midnight_ wrote:
Is this really neccessary?
No.
midnight_ wrote:
Why is it even possible to downrate a question?
It acts as a flag: a green question is probably worth looking at a grey on isn't. This isn't always the case, but it is an indicator. Some questions themselves are barely more than thinly-veiled requests for some chump to do the poster's work for him/her.
midnight_ wrote:
If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise?
If they are genuinely looking for advice, then yes they should be helped. The problem is there are an awfully large number of people in a spectrum that goes from gimme code merchants through to those who can't even be bothered with cursory searches on basic topics.Someone posted this[^] on CP recently. I suggest you read it and digest it. It gives an excellent perspective as to what the questioner should be doing at a minimum, but more than that it reveals the experience of an answerer. In short: There is a general decrease the ability/willingness to solve problems oneself, too many such people just want to be spoon-fed the answers, some don't perform basic checks and the increased number of these sorts of posts is leading developers like me to give up helping as it drowns out the good questions.
PB 369,783 wrote:
I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]
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There are some good, helpful people there. Unfortunately, there are also a number of people who vote down anything they don't understand, or can't read perfectly, or that is too simple for them. And others who seem only to be there to get rep points, regardless of the answer they give. :sigh: But there are some goodies - I wish Luc hadn't departed but had moved to QA...
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
I've been avoiding Q&A for a quite while now. Being told my answer was incomplete or, more commonly, inferior to another answer got too wearing and frankly I used to point prospective employers at my profile here to help demonstrate I'm an OK dev. This latter point was made hard by the comments and reputation (actual, not the stupid points thingy) is important.
PB 369,783 wrote:
I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]
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I've been avoiding Q&A for a quite while now. Being told my answer was incomplete or, more commonly, inferior to another answer got too wearing and frankly I used to point prospective employers at my profile here to help demonstrate I'm an OK dev. This latter point was made hard by the comments and reputation (actual, not the stupid points thingy) is important.
PB 369,783 wrote:
I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]
I don't mind it too much - when it's actually true. That way at least I can maybe learn something. But it does get very wearing when your answer is aimed at a complete beginner and you're trying not to confuse him too much...SAK does live in an ivory tower sometimes.
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt -
All the years since I'm a developer, I've always used the well-known online resources to learn and improve my skill. I participated on different communities, joined workgroups and else. But one thing never changed - the ego of some programmers. There are a lot of excellent and skilled people out there - however a few of them, need to boost their ego. They teasing beginners for their requests, claim anything but their opinion is wrong, and down-vote questions they consider to be ridiculous. Is this really neccessary? Why is it even possible to downrate a question? If somebody is looking for help, why not giving him an advise? I know many people have problems to frame question correctly., but they're in a progress of getting better. Or maybe I've just a wrong point of view and you should treat the beginner just like that....
Here I thought it is a new collective term, such as a murder of crows. :-D :-D
Every time you think, you weaken the nation.
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I don't mind it too much - when it's actually true. That way at least I can maybe learn something. But it does get very wearing when your answer is aimed at a complete beginner and you're trying not to confuse him too much...SAK does live in an ivory tower sometimes.
The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)
Oh, I don't mind it when it's genuine and correct either, though SAK does have a habit of phrasing things in a way that seems to get my back up. I used to learn a fair amount simply by answering and thinking the problems through, and that was before other people's input, not I post in the Lounge. Part of the problems is, when he replies, SAK answers with absolute conviction that his input is better, so anyone not in a position to judge will assume his is the better one. Several times I was involved with questions where he aggregated several answers, then commented on every answer that his post was seemingly formed from, pointing it at his "complete" answer. And yes, he really doesn't target his answers well at newbies.
PB 369,783 wrote:
I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]
