Drew Smathers wrote: > On Feb 11, 2008 5:25 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > > You guys are remarkably caustic. I imagine you'll only respond to this > opinion with more of the same, but I thought I'd throw that out there. > If it only takes you thirty seconds to give a quick overview, then why > not? Is it some sort of trade secret? If it's more involved, then > there is certainly no harm in telling him so in nicer terms. He is > already making the effort to learn. > > > I did feel bad for the sarcasm in my response, but it is the hard > truth. If you answer someone's question with working code that solves > their problem, then who does that help? No one. First, the person > responding has wasted time because the example might not even work in > the context of the asker's application. Second, the asker misses an > opportunity to learn by doing - through trial and error or other means. diordna, have you read http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ? It goes into great detail specifically about what you just mentioned. Here are some excerpts:
"Open-ended questions tend to be perceived as open-ended time sinks. Those people most likely to be able to give you a useful answer are also the busiest people (if only because they take on the most work themselves). People like that are allergic to open-ended time sinks, thus they tend to be allergic to open-ended questions." "To understand the world the experts live in, think of expertise as an abundant resource and time to respond as a scarce one. The less of a time commitment you implicitly ask for, the more likely you are to get an answer from someone really good and really busy." "In general, asking yes-or-no questions is a good thing to avoid unless you want a yes-or-no answer <http://homepages.tesco.net/%7EJ.deBoynePollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html>." "Much of what looks like rudeness in hacker circles is not intended to give offense. Rather, it's the product of the direct, cut-through-the-bullshit communications style that is natural to people who are more concerned about solving problems than making others feel warm and fuzzy. "When you perceive rudeness, try to react calmly. If someone is really acting out, it is very likely a senior person on the list or newsgroup or forum will call him or her on it. If that /doesn't/ happen and you lose your temper, it is likely that the person you lose it at was behaving within the hacker community's norms and /you/ will be considered at fault. This will hurt your chances of getting the information or help you want." I feel the replies so far have been very reasonable. If Jotham has tried code, he should include it. "If you have some malfunctioning code, it is usually smarter to ask for someone to explain what's wrong with it than it is to ask someone to fix it." Or in this case, ask for someone to rewrite it from scratch. -Luke --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "pyglet-users" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/pyglet-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
