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The Author stated that they had experienced hostility when asking questions. While I'm not sure to what level their experience was, I can share the many times I

The Author stated that they had experienced hostility when asking questions. While I'm not sure to what level their experience was, I can share the many times I've tried to answer a hardware question in many forums , I found the the individual who was asking was just looking for a quick working solution to their design idea (mostly a school project) and not really willing to take input on how to figure the solution out themselves. Many became hostile when I would not provide the schematic (with calculations) for them. That got old fast and convinced me to not try to help out any more. It's unfortunate that I can't share my 30 years of hard earned design experience with someone who truly wants to learn but I don't have the time to determine who is genuine and who is not. I'm just not going to deal with the hassle anymore. I get plenty of that at my day job....and they pay me to tolerate it.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
I try to handle this by not being too invested. If the poster hasn't mentioned anything other than "help me," then I point them at resources to learn with a suggestion of where to start. If they say "I did X Y and Z but I have problem W" then I try to provide more directed, actionable assistance, or at least explain how to debug the problem. That at least keeps me feeling like I'm being helpful, but not wasting my time.
mips_r4300i 3y ago
All I can do is point someone in the right direction and give a few things to read. But nobody wants to read. Unfortunately, doing hardware is hard without reading. Lots of it. Choosing a part requires reading datasheets by the dozen or hundreds, so you get fast at skimming them but when you pick one and design its circuit, you need to read every damn page of that PDF. And then go and dig up the errata if it exists too. Lots of knowledge about hardware exists either as institutional knowledge in people's heads or in books. But, electrons and physics still work the same way they did 30 years ago, so there's no reason you can't read an EE book from that long ago to get foundational concepts. Coders (myself included) try to Google our way to the fastest solution to each problem. Why read API documentation if someone has a solution on stack overflow? Unfortunately papering over knowledge gaps will often explode in your face because there inevitably will be mistakes, and now you have to wait 4 weeks to respin and assemble a new board. Long turn times and physical costs require a bit more level and less yolo in hardware. So there is no reason to become allergic to reading if you want to be in hardware.

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago

I try to handle this by not being too invested. If the poster hasn't mentioned anything other than "help me," then I point them at resources to learn with a suggestion of where to start. If they say "I did X Y and Z but I have problem W" then I try to provide more directed, actionable assistance, or at least explain how to debug the problem. That at least keeps me feeling like I'm being helpful, but not wasting my time.

mips_r4300i 3y ago

All I can do is point someone in the right direction and give a few things to read. But nobody wants to read. Unfortunately, doing hardware is hard without reading. Lots of it. Choosing a part requires reading datasheets by the dozen or hundreds, so you get fast at skimming them but when you pick one and design its circuit, you need to read every damn page of that PDF. And then go and dig up the errata if it exists too. Lots of knowledge about hardware exists either as institutional knowledge in people's heads or in books. But, electrons and physics still work the same way they did 30 years ago, so there's no reason you can't read an EE book from that long ago to get foundational concepts. Coders (myself included) try to Google our way to the fastest solution to each problem. Why read API documentation if someone has a solution on stack overflow? Unfortunately papering over knowledge gaps will often explode in your face because there inevitably will be mistakes, and now you have to wait 4 weeks to respin and assemble a new board. Long turn times and physical costs require a bit more level and less yolo in hardware. So there is no reason to become allergic to reading if you want to be in hardware.