Honestly, at this point it's about the asker's urge to learn -- if he blindly looks for an answer, then he won't take anything away from it. If he looks for rea

Honestly, at this point it's about the asker's urge to learn -- if he blindly looks for an answer, then he won't take anything away from it. If he looks for reasons, then he'll get them. This is true regardless of which method he'd use to figure out a solution. I do agree it's not binary -- I'm learning Objective C right now, and spent two hours last night tracking down a crash that was ultimately linked to not understanding retain and release semantics. That is worthwhile, and a situation where just asking someone for a fix wouldn't work. But I think that's a learning issue. If you already know the majority of what's going on, and the rest is just finding a key, then I think searching/asking is perfectly valid. And really, wouldn't you argue that a programmer worth being called such would always attempt to be involved with finding the answer?