lack of research
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This is so true! I know I use google to search MSDN as do many other programmers here. MSDN search is almost completely useless for finding relevant information to a search query.
I usually do an index search. Then I most often find something close to what I'm searching for. Once I've done that, I click "synch topics", and navigate from there. It works most of the time. Navigating through the topics hierarchy is just hopeless. -- Ich bin Joachim von Hassel, und ich bin Pilot der Bundeswehr. Welle: Erdball - F104-G Starfighter
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True enough, but I think his larger complaint is how hard is it to just use google? Hell, google, IMHO, does a better job of searching MSDN for topics than MSDN's own search engine! ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
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It doesn't bother me that much when people ask these questions. As experts in our field we not only know the answers to these questions but we know where to find the answers. Someone just starting out might not trully understand the context of even where to begin understanding something. When I was first starting out, a lot of programmers were patient with me to help, so now I try to return that favor to beginners as well.
That's why I say, if they ask questions that are answered in the docs, point them to the relevant articles/article sections - let them do the research, but tell them what to look for and where.
"The real and lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
True enough, but I think his larger complaint is how hard is it to just use google? Hell, google, IMHO, does a better job of searching MSDN for topics than MSDN's own search engine! ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
Google search: [search terms] site:msdn.microsoft.com -Steven Hicks
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While I am certainly no match for several other programmers here, I do take pride in trying to research and find answers to my own issues before posting questions in forums. I typically buy books on new topics if the topics are big enough. At the bare minimum I spend time with the API documentation for any API I'm using. Just browsing some of the question forums, I'm disturbed by the utter basicness of some of the questions. i.e. People using a class method but asking a very basic question that is OBVIOUSLY detailed in MSDN. Or people asking such basic questions as 'what is a callback function.' I mean don't developers read and research anymore? I know we do.. it just bugs me when people just dump silly questions when they're too lazy to do even the most basic research on their own. Sorry, I just had to get this out of my hair.
Personally, it does not bother me. If they ask the same question over and over after they have had an answer, that can be a pain. I guess the way I look at it is that time is valuable. If someone has been down a road and found the ways, it is quicker to hear what they found and all get to reap the benefits. Pointing people to books, articles or like many use to do back when MSDN was not free, they would point to references there and expect people to buy it instead of just giving the simple answer. I may be missing the point though. Seems like sharing is better than spending hours digging through documentation. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
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It doesn't bother me that much when people ask these questions. As experts in our field we not only know the answers to these questions but we know where to find the answers. Someone just starting out might not trully understand the context of even where to begin understanding something. When I was first starting out, a lot of programmers were patient with me to help, so now I try to return that favor to beginners as well.
I agree. However it does seem to have changed down though the years. Before MSDN and Web explosion you had USENET. The level of beginner questions in the old USNET news groups, at least the C/C++ groups, was quite higher in general than what we see today. Also 8 years ago when i would interview candidates that had 12 years experience in software development they knew some stuff. In the past few years that is mostly not the case. We have had about 20 candidates who's resume lists them as 8 years to 15 years C++ experience that don't know what a constructor initialization list is among other basic things. Several of those people could not even write a simeple int class member variable declaration.
"No matter where you go, there your are." - Buckaroo Banzai
-pete
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I agree. However it does seem to have changed down though the years. Before MSDN and Web explosion you had USENET. The level of beginner questions in the old USNET news groups, at least the C/C++ groups, was quite higher in general than what we see today. Also 8 years ago when i would interview candidates that had 12 years experience in software development they knew some stuff. In the past few years that is mostly not the case. We have had about 20 candidates who's resume lists them as 8 years to 15 years C++ experience that don't know what a constructor initialization list is among other basic things. Several of those people could not even write a simeple int class member variable declaration.
"No matter where you go, there your are." - Buckaroo Banzai
-pete
palbano wrote: Also 8 years ago when i would interview candidates that had 12 years experience in software development they knew some stuff. In the past few years that is mostly not the case. We have had about 20 candidates who's resume lists them as 8 years to 15 years C++ experience that don't know what a constructor initialization list is among other basic things. Several of those people could not even write a simeple int class member variable declaration. With the increased use of wizards and code generators. It is possible to write a C++ Windows app, without having to know much about the language at all. MFC being the worst culprit, where it is possible to generate a reasonable application with only limited C++ knowledge. In the old days we had to write every line of code ourselves. You learnt the language because it was the only way to produce decent applications. Now I can create a class without knowing what a constructor or destructor is. Classwizard generates the class (say CDialog derived) and all I need to know is that I have to call DoModal() to show it. Some people call that C++ experience, it all depends on your point of view. :-D Michael CP Blog [^]
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True enough, but I think his larger complaint is how hard is it to just use google? Hell, google, IMHO, does a better job of searching MSDN for topics than MSDN's own search engine! ¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned
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Personally, it does not bother me. If they ask the same question over and over after they have had an answer, that can be a pain. I guess the way I look at it is that time is valuable. If someone has been down a road and found the ways, it is quicker to hear what they found and all get to reap the benefits. Pointing people to books, articles or like many use to do back when MSDN was not free, they would point to references there and expect people to buy it instead of just giving the simple answer. I may be missing the point though. Seems like sharing is better than spending hours digging through documentation. Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com
It is much better to share than dig through documentation. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I just think people would take enough pride in their craft to WANT a basic understanding before trying to start creating an app or something. I mean you can only go so far pasting together articles and samples from the internet. At some point a developer has to know what they're doing or the software will be totally crap. And, without reading a few intro books or atleast reading about the class or function you're trying to use in the docs, you can't know what you're doing. IMHO that is.
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It is much better to share than dig through documentation. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I just think people would take enough pride in their craft to WANT a basic understanding before trying to start creating an app or something. I mean you can only go so far pasting together articles and samples from the internet. At some point a developer has to know what they're doing or the software will be totally crap. And, without reading a few intro books or atleast reading about the class or function you're trying to use in the docs, you can't know what you're doing. IMHO that is.
Yeah, I have noticed some that do not appear to know anything about programming but seem to have stumbled into a job as one... The post initially sent fears of the earily days when most messages in forums where telling people to see MSDN or books that you would have to buy. When you were trying to research something on the net and all you got were referrences to written materal (or MSDN) that you could not access without purchasing them, it made a lot of the forums virtually useless. Of course that was a number of years ago :) There is a lot of information online nowadays! Rocky <>< www.HintsAndTips.com www.GotTheAnswerToSpam.com