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I wonder what these requests for help look like. I idle in a handful of IRC channels devoted to various frameworks and languages. There are a handful of peopl

by ctide 13y ago

I wonder what these requests for help look like. I idle in a handful of IRC channels devoted to various frameworks and languages. There are a handful of people who get berated, but it's nearly always people who come in and demand answers and are unwilling to do any leg work to describe their problem. If it's gotten to the point where every single time you ask for help you're being bullied or berated, the common denominator is you. How are you going about asking? What venues are you asking in? What do you do to properly describe your problem? When people ask you to try things do you do it or argue that whatever they're suggesting can't be related?

rtpg 13y ago
Some communities can be pretty hostile to newcomers. Not necessarily programming, but a lot of tech communities complain a lot about newbie questions, basically saying that they're not here to write config files for you, or things like that. Some people revel in the 'secret clubhouse' mentality of being the only people to understand how some program works or something.
- drharris 13y ago
  I think the number of people who enjoy being siloed experts is many orders of magnitude below what people think it is. I think in the tech community, most hacker types love helping others along. After all, somebody influenced us. I've met maybe one or two people my whole life who got sick enjoyment from watching people stumble, and even they eventually grew out of it. The problem is not that experts hate newbies, it's that they've already answered the exact same question fifty times. Were one to type that question into google, it would spit out hundreds of results saying the same things. The answer is already out there. As hackers, we follow the DRY rule, especially when giving help. If it's out there on the interweb, then please tell why we should explain it yet one more time. In the end, it's a balance of efforts. While it would take the expert 15 minutes to craft a good explanatory reply, it would take the asker a few minutes to type it into Google and read the first few responses that pop up. For any good question, the burden of time should be on the asker.
rizzom5000 13y ago
The amount of help available online to aspiring programmers is, in my opinion, profound. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of gratitude I feel toward others in this field who spend their free time answering questions and in writing useful blog posts and tutorials; not to mention the scores of free ebooks available from their authors along with the numerous open source projects that are freely available to everyone everywhere to study or use. I can only guess that the author was having a bad day when he/she wrote this post. But despite some nasty mannerisms here and there; it seems apparent that the online tech community is comprised of a lot of people willing to share helpful information with others; without reservation or any expectation of compensation (other than rep points, perhaps).

by ctide 13y ago

rtpg 13y ago

Some communities can be pretty hostile to newcomers. Not necessarily programming, but a lot of tech communities complain a lot about newbie questions, basically saying that they're not here to write config files for you, or things like that. Some people revel in the 'secret clubhouse' mentality of being the only people to understand how some program works or something.

drharris 13y ago
I think the number of people who enjoy being siloed experts is many orders of magnitude below what people think it is. I think in the tech community, most hacker types love helping others along. After all, somebody influenced us. I've met maybe one or two people my whole life who got sick enjoyment from watching people stumble, and even they eventually grew out of it. The problem is not that experts hate newbies, it's that they've already answered the exact same question fifty times. Were one to type that question into google, it would spit out hundreds of results saying the same things. The answer is already out there. As hackers, we follow the DRY rule, especially when giving help. If it's out there on the interweb, then please tell why we should explain it yet one more time. In the end, it's a balance of efforts. While it would take the expert 15 minutes to craft a good explanatory reply, it would take the asker a few minutes to type it into Google and read the first few responses that pop up. For any good question, the burden of time should be on the asker.

rizzom5000 13y ago

The amount of help available online to aspiring programmers is, in my opinion, profound. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of gratitude I feel toward others in this field who spend their free time answering questions and in writing useful blog posts and tutorials; not to mention the scores of free ebooks available from their authors along with the numerous open source projects that are freely available to everyone everywhere to study or use. I can only guess that the author was having a bad day when he/she wrote this post. But despite some nasty mannerisms here and there; it seems apparent that the online tech community is comprised of a lot of people willing to share helpful information with others; without reservation or any expectation of compensation (other than rep points, perhaps).