4 ms·

But beginners often don't know what to ask or how, or even what to Google for. You need a year in the field just to pick up the right terms to type into a searc

But beginners often don't know what to ask or how, or even what to Google for. You need a year in the field just to pick up the right terms to type into a search engine to point you in the right direction.

PeCaN 11y ago
I'd debate that a bit. Personally I hardly had to ask any questions when I was a beginner, and I'm not even particularly good with Google. Relevant vocabulary can be picked up from tutorials quite quickly. Though Google does seem a little worse at programming queries now than it was circa 2009. :/
- fapjacks 11y ago
  I support your position 100%. There was no Google when I had questions. I cut my teeth on pointers in C with nothing but the K&R book. That people can't be bothered to put some effort into that miraculous white textbox doesn't make me feel any pity for them. Google is good enough just literally typing what you're saying with your mouth into the search bar. The other thing here I feel pretty strongly about is that programming has a barrier to entry, and that barrier to entry will not go away until robots are writing software. In twenty years of programming, I have met people that cannot think in that way, try as they might. At some point, people will hit a test of wherewithal. Their ability to reason and think logically about pure abstractions will be put to the test. Whether they fail the test in their first semester, their first SO question, or their first time trying to Google something, trying to do something about it is just shifting the time when that happens. There's a reason programmers have the salaries we do.
viraptor 11y ago
Sometimes that's true. But often it's enough to google the actual error message which is returned to you and people still don't do that. I don't think that's a case of beginner not knowing what to google for. https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%22NoneType+object+has+no+attribute%22 https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%22NoneType+object+has+no... - ~900 cases of people spending time to upload their code to SO and waiting for answers with explanations, rather than trying to understand what the error means. (or even reading the first link that comes up in "Questions that may already have your answer")
- crispyambulance 11y ago
  It is never OK to be mean to someone asking a question. But more importantly, it is clear that too many questions have "enough" effort put into them that they don't deserve a withering response. As for copy-pasting error-messages into google, the results may not apply, in the asker's mind, to what they are doing. The results might have information which is too technical to understand. If the error comes from a turgid framework, it might very well provide no useful clue at all because its just detritus from leaky framework abstractions.
  - smithkl42 11y ago
    "detritus from leaky framework abstractions" - good line.
- smithkl42 11y ago
  Here's an example of me screwing up a pretty basic question on SO: I was new to Angular, and didn't even think to follow the really obvious URL that they included in the error message. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19671962/uncaught-error-injectorunpr-with-angular-after-deployment http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19671962/uncaught-error-i... Luckily, I was met with a kind and thoughtful answer, and it turns out that I'm probably not the only one with the problem: the question has had some 42K views. But I've been coding for 20+ years, and I still screwed up my question. Yes, even on a Q&A site, folks should research before posting. But some grace to beginners who don't even know the proper etiquette would go a long ways.
  - viraptor 11y ago
    You're one of the first ones who reported it, it's also a terrible error message that you said yourself was not googlable at the time. You provided as much information as you could. I see nothing wrong with your question and don't think it's in the same category as the list I posted.

PeCaN 11y ago

I'd debate that a bit. Personally I hardly had to ask any questions when I was a beginner, and I'm not even particularly good with Google. Relevant vocabulary can be picked up from tutorials quite quickly. Though Google does seem a little worse at programming queries now than it was circa 2009. :/

fapjacks 11y ago
I support your position 100%. There was no Google when I had questions. I cut my teeth on pointers in C with nothing but the K&R book. That people can't be bothered to put some effort into that miraculous white textbox doesn't make me feel any pity for them. Google is good enough just literally typing what you're saying with your mouth into the search bar. The other thing here I feel pretty strongly about is that programming has a barrier to entry, and that barrier to entry will not go away until robots are writing software. In twenty years of programming, I have met people that cannot think in that way, try as they might. At some point, people will hit a test of wherewithal. Their ability to reason and think logically about pure abstractions will be put to the test. Whether they fail the test in their first semester, their first SO question, or their first time trying to Google something, trying to do something about it is just shifting the time when that happens. There's a reason programmers have the salaries we do.

viraptor 11y ago

Sometimes that's true. But often it's enough to google the actual error message which is returned to you and people still don't do that. I don't think that's a case of beginner not knowing what to google for. https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%22NoneType+object+has+no+attribute%22 https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=%22NoneType+object+has+no... - ~900 cases of people spending time to upload their code to SO and waiting for answers with explanations, rather than trying to understand what the error means. (or even reading the first link that comes up in "Questions that may already have your answer")

crispyambulance 11y ago
It is never OK to be mean to someone asking a question. But more importantly, it is clear that too many questions have "enough" effort put into them that they don't deserve a withering response. As for copy-pasting error-messages into google, the results may not apply, in the asker's mind, to what they are doing. The results might have information which is too technical to understand. If the error comes from a turgid framework, it might very well provide no useful clue at all because its just detritus from leaky framework abstractions.
- smithkl42 11y ago
  "detritus from leaky framework abstractions" - good line.
smithkl42 11y ago
Here's an example of me screwing up a pretty basic question on SO: I was new to Angular, and didn't even think to follow the really obvious URL that they included in the error message. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19671962/uncaught-error-injectorunpr-with-angular-after-deployment http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19671962/uncaught-error-i... Luckily, I was met with a kind and thoughtful answer, and it turns out that I'm probably not the only one with the problem: the question has had some 42K views. But I've been coding for 20+ years, and I still screwed up my question. Yes, even on a Q&A site, folks should research before posting. But some grace to beginners who don't even know the proper etiquette would go a long ways.
- viraptor 11y ago
  You're one of the first ones who reported it, it's also a terrible error message that you said yourself was not googlable at the time. You provided as much information as you could. I see nothing wrong with your question and don't think it's in the same category as the list I posted.