Regarding the beno problem. Yeah, I came here from Flashnewbies a long time ago, and when I first started, I really didn't even know what 90% of what anyone was saying. But I kept listening - after about 6 months of listening, trying things on my own, reading, trying, experimenting, reading just about every page of Flash help's documentation, I began to understand and ask questions.
Nowadays I consider myself an Actionscript / Flash pro and answer way more questions than I ask. Not bragging, but I didn't get to an expert level overnight, it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears over many years. Thousands and thousands of hours spent learning about Flash and Actionscript. Beno is jumping into Papervision3D at the same time he's asking how to write a class. It's a bit like the American Idol tryouts my uh... wife... is watching in the next room right now. Some people need to be more honest about their abilities and take it one step at a time before jumping into the big pool with the thought they are only one or two notes away from a Grammy. It doesn't mean beno is dumb or can't do it, it just means he can't do it all at once and needs to make an honest assessment of what to focus on first. I think the thing that is irritating people (and why I haven't been jumping in too much to help) is beno's modus operandi is to post some code and say it doesn't work - implement some code someone else writes as a possible solution, then re-post and say it doesn't work - he may have made some minor tweaks, but it's clear there are a lot of fundamental principles that are lacking in his understanding, or at least a lack of critical thinking to get at the logic behind the problem. If you've ever read the Sci Fi book Gateway by Frederick Pohl, the basic plot, (without spoiling anything if you plan to read it) is that the people of earth have discovered a huge trove of abandoned but still functioning alien spaceships which can take them all over the universe. With these ships, they have the possibility of discovering huge riches, but they don't know how to operate the controls to the ships, so they just get in and start pressing buttons. Some people make it out and back ok, but some people never come back or never come back in one piece. They just keep pressing weird buttons and turning strange knobs over and over and over and never learn anything, they are only focused on the end goal, not the mechanics of getting them there. A small few make it rich, but many people go nowhere and many others die. Along with Moock's, it's a great book. Jason Merrill Bank of America Global Learning Learning & Performance Soluions Join the Bank of America Flash Platform Community and visit our Instructional Technology Design Blog (note: these are for Bank of America employees only) -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steven Sacks Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 8:15 PM To: Flash Coders List Subject: Re: OT Re: [Flashcoders] I Must Be Asking This Question Wrong... I think you made a very good point right here: > Surely we all get a lot of free work out of you too - by using Gaia. Yes, what I provided for free benefits more than just one person, it benefits the community. The only person benefiting from free work here is beno. There's nothing to be learned by a third party from the custom files that are being sent back and forth to beno. Also, here's another key thing you said: > I started helping beno and felt it was only fair to finish my help at a > suitable point rather than leave him hanging. This was exactly the guilt trip that beno gave to this list when Kerry didn't do beno's work for him. There was quite a row about this when it happened many months ago. Kerry felt awful and beno let the whole list know just how much Kerry let him down and how wrong he was for doing it. beno isn't meeting anyone halfway. You should be able to get him started down the right path, and if he had a modicum of knowledge or experience, he would be able to do it himself, but that's not what's going on. He's getting you to do it soup to nuts for free. That's not support, that's doing his work for free. You're being conned. beno is always asking for things that are way out of his league and expecting people to spend tons of time explaining things to him which eventually ends up in people just doing it for him since it quickly becomes obvious he's not going to be able to do it himself and it would just take less time to do it than to explain it. You have to walk before you can run, and beno refuses to pay his dues and learn anything on his own. He's a help vampire, nothing more. All of this happens under the thinly veiled guise of support, and if you don't support him, he guilt trips you publicly for letting him down and tells you a sob story about how in his country computers have hamsters on wheels for power supplies and his hamster is sick and he promised his client he would have this done in only two weeks when he didn't know how to do it in the first place. _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list [email protected] http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list [email protected] http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
