Anyone else starting to feel like this?

[Garethp]

Lately it's become less and less appealing to go to the PHP Help section to help people. Their stupidly phrased questions, or their need to debug these peices of code which look so long just repell me more and more. That's why I like the Regex section, it's nice, it's short, and it's fun.

 

Anyone else feeling like this?

[xcoderx]

No lol

[Alex]

I haven't noticed much of a change.

[tibberous]

I like long lines of code...

[Philip]

Nothing has changed, you were just blinded by the amount of idiots bad posts before... and now you see the tidal wave of them all

[Farmgirl]

I think the problem is that you, like many of us, forget how stupid you must have sounded in the early days of learning anything to do with computers and programming. When you stated asking questions about topics which were new to you. We are all stupid and ignorant, when it comes to asking questions about something we don't know. Until one knows the language (jargon) one does not need to say much to sound stupid.

 

What I find equally as off putting, is the arrogance of some, so called 'helpers', who assume that because you can't express yourself in 'their' language, you are treated like a leaper, to be avoided at all costs, or worse still, to be talked down to as though you are a child and admonished for whatever you have done wrong in their eyes, making you feel less inclined to ask any more questions, be they genuine, even if they are incomprehensible or otherwise.

[.josh]

The problem is many people need fish but have no intention of learning to be a fisher.  The common sense solution to that would be to hire a fisher, but either they cannot afford it or else don't want to pay for it.  They just want a quick fix or someone to quickly fix it for them, and then move on.  Point is, a lot of people do not have any intention of learning to program; they just have this one issue they personally have to deal with.  We are not here to cater to those people.  We aren't here to cater to anybody, actually.  This isn't a business. You guys aren't customers.  Whether you go here or some other place makes no difference to us. We have no obligation or responsibility to people.  The problem is that many people seem to think otherwise.

 

What I find off putting is the arrogance of some so called 'helpees' who assume that we have nothing better to do with our time than do other people's work for them so they don't get in trouble at work or whatever.  This is a free site and all the 'helpers' are volunteers.  Our efforts are to teach people to fish, not be their personal fishers, and those efforts are for our own reasons (by helping, we ourselves learn), not because we are somehow obligated.

 

It is not asking too much or being arrogant to expect people to make an effort to research before posting.  Seriously, there are a lot of questions that many people ask the same basic thing over and over.  Arrogance is assuming you're the first person to ever ask xyz.  And then insult us by offering some lame lie about how you did try to google.  "Wording it right" is a matter of understanding basic communication, not understanding programming.

 

It is not asking too much or being arrogant to expect people to write legibly.  Seriously.  You are coming here for help, not the other way around.  You are offering nothing in return, nor are you required to give anything in return.  Writing legibly enables people to better understand your problem so that we can help you. 

 

It is not asking too much or being arrogant to expect certain detail in posts.  We have guidelines, stickies, rules, advice for posting, etc.. all over the place.  But people don't bother to read them.  That's like going to someone's house and they have a big sign posted on their door to take off your shoes before coming in, but you don't bother to take off your shoes. What I find off putting is that they then have the gall to get all mad when we're like wtf take off your shoes! You have the gall to say we are being arrogant by expecting you to know ahead of time, when we go through a lot of effort to plaster shit all over the place in an effort to help you. 

 

It is not asking too much or being arrogant to expect people to make an effort to research information given in posts (links to the manual, terms to search, general concepts, etc...). You claim you tried to google and found nothing.  Well we point you in the right direction, like a manual entry.  You claim you don't understand.  What you're really saying is that you don't understand because you aren't interested in doing what it takes to learn, most likely because you just want a quick c/p fix spoonfed to fix this one-time-only problem.  We are not here to cater to these people. 

 

The problem is that since many people have no intention of actually learning, they expect to be spoonfed.  They expect a magic wand to be waved.  They expect to be able to at most just c/p something and magically their problem is solved, never have to touch php or programming ever again.  That is not what we are here for.  We are here to teach people how to be programmers, not do their work for them. 

 

The problem is that non-programmers do not understand the discipline and complexity of programming.  They think it's simple c/p shit that magically works.  You get mad when we scream about not doing simple "common sense" stuff like going through a debugging process before asking a question (did you echo out the var to see if it holds what you expect? etc..), but you do not understand that if you cannot even do that, then you cannot program.  How are you supposed to consider 100 different things all working together if you can't even have the foresight to echo out a damn variable to see if it holds what you expect, before asking on some forum? 

 

The problem is not that we are arrogant or asking too much.  The problem is that too many people don't want to make an effort to actually learn, mostly because they have no intention of learning in the first place.  They somehow think it's our responsibility or duty to fix their problem, and they don't read any of the rules or guidelines that are in place to help them get their question answered.

 

Programming is not some simple thing anybody can pick up in a day, or week, or even a year.  People equate programming to kung-fu not just because it sounds cool, but because it takes effort.  It takes commitment.  It takes discipline.  The reality is that people who whine and complain about things like "being treated as lepers" for "not saying or doing xyz" do not have what it takes to be a programmer. 

 

We do not have issues with noobs who want to learn.  The issues come up when it is clear to us they are not here to learn.  And even if you really do want to learn, if you can't even do simple shit like learn to write legibly, read rules and guidelines and stickies, research for yourself, etc.. then you are not ready to learn. 

 

That's like joining the army because you want to be a soldier, but you get all pissy because the drill sergeant is yelling at you and making you do pushups and run for miles on end and get up at o'-dark thirty in the morning and etc... blahblahblah.  You cannot magically be a toughened, skilled warrior w/out the discipline and training.  We are here to help make soldiers, not be your personal henchman.

 

We are not obligated to help anybody with anything, nor are we obligated to be "nice" about anything, in the same way businesses are "nice" because in the end they want your money, because we are not a business.  General respect for fellow human beings?  Well you have to give respect in order to get it.  When you come to our site and don't bother to read the rules or make any kind of effort to research, when you post some barely legible vague question, you are not respecting us.  You are doing the opposite.  99% of the time our alleged "arrogance" is really a response to your disrespect to us.

[Daniel0]

*wall of text*

 

QFT.

[Farmgirl]

*wall of text*

 

QFT.

 

What has Quantum Field Theory (QFT) got to do with this discussion? Or is this 'senior' missing something?

[Daniel0]

Quoted for Truth.

[nrg_alpha]

*stands up and begins applauding...* Damn CV, that post 'wall of text' is so spot on, I think it should be a global, nay, superglobal sticky accessable throughout all forums on this site!

 

Yes, yes, I know.. not many people would read it as a sticky anyway.. but hey, even if just a few do read it, perhaps that many more people who will now know and understand where we 'helpers' are coming from.

 

[PFMaBiSmAd]

The most enjoyable exchange I ever had on a programming help forum was when a guy was writing a golf scorecard record system. He was either a golfer picking up programming as he was trying to develop this for real or it was a programming course assignment.

 

He knew what he wanted the end result to be (planning, defining, and designing before you write any code is always the most efficient method), he had actually tried to find out why his code was not working but was stuck with one problem. Without anyone needing to tell him, he posted just the relevant code (and labeled what each piece was), posted the data from his database, posted the link he was using that contained the values he was trying that did not give the correct results, posted the results he was getting, posted at what point in the code he was getting the expected results and at what point he was not, and what the expected results should have been.

 

It was a joy to actually look through his code, which was more than just a few lines, in order to help him. I actually posted a thank you to him for how he had presented his problem.

 

The key here is that even though he was not an experienced programmer HE did all of that and only needed some HELP in solving a programming related problem.

 

Once I wrote what was causing the problem, he did not need to ask where or how to "put that into my code." He took the direction given and because he knew what his code was meant, he was able to change the relevant lines of code himself.

 

[rant]

Was this guy an exception? Perhaps, but we are not trying to potty train three year olds here either. Everyone having access to this forum should be a young-adult or older. Defining, writing, testing, and debugging code is really all just problem solving but is done in a different language (and before you do any defining, writing, testing, and debugging of code you have got to learn enough of the language so that you can at least follow along with what you are looking at or understand a reply or be willing to go and research something that you did not understand.) Basic programming is not that hard if you actually think about what you are doing and what you see in front of you when you try something (no it is not magic), but it is one of the most detail orientated activities there is. So, if you are not detail oriented or you are sloppy or go into programming thinking you will take short-cuts and do the minimum necessary to accomplish any task, you won't succeed at it.

[/rant]

[.josh]

Exactly. 99% of getting your problem solved is how you present your problem in the first place.  It is not a matter of jumping through hoops, telling us how awesome we are so we will give you the time of day.  It is a matter of you communicating your problem and showing what you have and haven't done, as well as what you do and do not understand, so that you do not waste people's time when trying to help you.  Posting relevant code.  It's an easy cop-out to think that noob==don't know relevant parts.  I call B.S. on that.  If you don't know relevant parts, then you are probably working on a 3rd party script and have no intention of actually learning programming.  Or else you need to step back many steps.  In either case, if you cannot identify relevant parts of your problem, then you will not understand answers given.

[waynewex]

Exactly. 99% of getting your problem solved is how you present your problem in the first place.  It is not a matter of jumping through hoops, telling us how awesome we are so we will give you the time of day.  It is a matter of you communicating your problem and showing what you have and haven't done, as well as what you do and do not understand, so that you do not waste people's time when trying to help you.  Posting relevant code.  It's an easy cop-out to think that noob==don't know relevant parts.  I call B.S. on that.  If you don't know relevant parts, then you are probably working on a 3rd party script and have no intention of actually learning programming.  Or else you need to step back many steps.  In either case, if you cannot identify relevant parts of your problem, then you will not understand answers given.

 

Only two weeks ago, somebody posted something like:

 

image resizing

 

That was it.

[448191]

Something CV wrote that I agree with, imagine that.

 

Although I don't think the *largest* portion of n00bs are not willing to learn because they are looking for "script fixing by someone who does know what he's doing". Don't underestimate the percentage of people who are not willing to learn because they don't like to be wrong, consciously or not. Or they pretend to know more about some topic out of similar pride and get upset when the answer you give them exposes that they don't. Human ego is a powerful behavioural influence. Note that this isn't a stab at any people in particular, we're all human after all.

[.josh]

Something CV wrote that I agree with, imagine that.

 

OMG sign of the apocalypse!

 

Although I don't think the *largest* portion of n00bs are not willing to learn because they are looking for "script fixing by someone who does know what he's doing". Don't underestimate the percentage of people who are not willing to learn because they don't like to be wrong, consciously or not. Or they pretend to know more about some topic out of similar pride and get upset when the answer you give them exposes that they don't. Human ego is a powerful behavioural influence. Note that this isn't a stab at any people in particular, we're all human after all.

 

Yeah that's true.  More than plenty of people who refuse to accept an answer or advice given because it involves telling them they need to step back to square one, etc...