4 ms·

Are you aware of the author's work? Eric Lippert isn't a random SO lover and writes lots and lots of helpful articles. I consider this one helpful as well. The

Are you aware of the author's work? Eric Lippert isn't a random SO lover and writes lots and lots of helpful articles. I consider this one helpful as well. The advice is good. You focus on the "so SO closed your question" part and seem to ignore the meat of the article?

brudgers 13y ago
I recognized the name as familiar when I saw it, but until reading his "about me" didn't connect it up with his role in C#. What stands out to me, is that the tribalism of StackOverflow is so rampant that its noxious treatment of students flows so naturally into the writing of someone like Lippert. The tragedy is that within the standards of the StackOverflow community [1], mere condescension and RTFCM ['C' is for "compiler"] has a claim to being helpful. Could Lippert write an article truly helpful for students? Almost certainly, but this is not it. Such an article can't be written from a starting point of holding students in contempt, and that's part and parcel of the tribal mores at StackOverflow. My advice would be to follow his own advice and teach a rubber duck to debug. Or better still a rubber duck's 15 year old daughter sitting in a Nairobi internet cafe writing code on her cell phone.
- darklajid 13y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. Disclaimers aside: Eric Lippert is for me on the same level as Raymond Chen. An amazing source into Microsoft's world - and yes I know that Eric isn't working there anymore). Your reply again seems to fight SO. I get the feeling you use this article to further your cause, to prove that SO is bad. I've got no stake in that conflict, my SO account is ancient and I'm mostly a reader for years. I don't believe Eric meant to belittle people and I think your impression is .. a lot more negative than it should be. Last but not least: If a rubber duck's 15 year old daughter (Hey, at this point I could turn around and ask you why the example character is female and turn this into a different type of mud-slinging contest) sitting in Nairobi (why Africa?) would type code on her cell phone and it didn't work right away, SO really isn't the answer. You might not like it, but generic "Hey, so I wrote this stuff and it doesn't really work" sort of questions aren't deemed acceptable. Mistaking a QA site with (more and more) strict guidelines for a generic place to call for help and coming up with an example that feels like a call of "think of the (african, female) children)" won't help. This is the wrong place and judging people for these guidelines is .. weird. There might be a need for a place where your fictional characters should be able to ask for help and get real support. I wouldn't know and I can only imagine that it would be hell to try to help out. All of that is totally irrelevant for the article at hand though. Eric teaches people to fish, you seem to argue that he'd (we'd?) hand out the meals instead.

brudgers 13y ago

I recognized the name as familiar when I saw it, but until reading his "about me" didn't connect it up with his role in C#. What stands out to me, is that the tribalism of StackOverflow is so rampant that its noxious treatment of students flows so naturally into the writing of someone like Lippert. The tragedy is that within the standards of the StackOverflow community [1], mere condescension and RTFCM ['C' is for "compiler"] has a claim to being helpful. Could Lippert write an article truly helpful for students? Almost certainly, but this is not it. Such an article can't be written from a starting point of holding students in contempt, and that's part and parcel of the tribal mores at StackOverflow. My advice would be to follow his own advice and teach a rubber duck to debug. Or better still a rubber duck's 15 year old daughter sitting in a Nairobi internet cafe writing code on her cell phone.

darklajid 13y ago
I'm not sure I follow. Disclaimers aside: Eric Lippert is for me on the same level as Raymond Chen. An amazing source into Microsoft's world - and yes I know that Eric isn't working there anymore). Your reply again seems to fight SO. I get the feeling you use this article to further your cause, to prove that SO is bad. I've got no stake in that conflict, my SO account is ancient and I'm mostly a reader for years. I don't believe Eric meant to belittle people and I think your impression is .. a lot more negative than it should be. Last but not least: If a rubber duck's 15 year old daughter (Hey, at this point I could turn around and ask you why the example character is female and turn this into a different type of mud-slinging contest) sitting in Nairobi (why Africa?) would type code on her cell phone and it didn't work right away, SO really isn't the answer. You might not like it, but generic "Hey, so I wrote this stuff and it doesn't really work" sort of questions aren't deemed acceptable. Mistaking a QA site with (more and more) strict guidelines for a generic place to call for help and coming up with an example that feels like a call of "think of the (african, female) children)" won't help. This is the wrong place and judging people for these guidelines is .. weird. There might be a need for a place where your fictional characters should be able to ask for help and get real support. I wouldn't know and I can only imagine that it would be hell to try to help out. All of that is totally irrelevant for the article at hand though. Eric teaches people to fish, you seem to argue that he'd (we'd?) hand out the meals instead.