I think that programming is much more than typing. A programmer must do many things. The most important is problem solving. I see these people posting how do I do this or that, and it makes me sick. Of course they can ask for help, but if are not willing to even try for themselves, post a little of their code, I do not even consider helping. I understand that everyone has to start somewhere, and that''s why Gamedev.net has the Start Here link at the homepage. It really bothers me when people are too lazy to figure something out on their own, or even attempt to research an answer for themselves. Any thoughts?

Well at what point is a question valid? I mean, is there some threshhold I''m supposed to pass before I can ask a question? ooops, just asked one...

We all ask stupid questions sometimes. Of course, we don''t know how stupid they are until we learn the answer right?

I agree people need to learn to figure stuff out, but my technique is to post a question while I go look. If I find the answer, then hey, no big deal. If I don''t I can come back and check and see what kind of hints I''ve got.

Usually the responses on this board aren''t good enough to solve a problem all on their own. People misinterpret the question, or will get distracted by other threads. Or will post links to places that contain 30% of the information you need.

If people make the effort to do some work and actually hit a point of asking a question, then they probably aren''t that lazy at all.

You make a valid point. I''m glad that a distinction has been made between the "37337" here(Witchlord for example) and the others. I must admit I''m not such a great people person, but I still think such posts as I described above devalue to message boards. On the other hand, I was a newbie once myself.

I agree with Potsticker completely. Except for the stupid question thing. "There is no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people." - some person.

acw83: what are you talking about?



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Captured Reality.

WOW. We have a genius among us!!!

"Programming is much more that typing."

No S*** Sherlock!!! But I totally agree with you, it takes a good noggin to be a good programmer. I just think this is kind of a simple topic, and doesn''t really deserve its own thread. Sorry about the sarcasm, I couldn''t resist

quote:

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We all ask stupid questions sometimes. Of course, we don''t know how stupid they are until we learn the answer right?

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I don''t think the problem is so much with "stupid" questions. What people have a problem with are questions with answers which can easily be found. For example, it''s annoying when someone posts something dumb like:

"Hey dewdz, can uz guyz tell me howz to use DirectDraw!?!?!?!?!?!?"

When someone posts that you want to hit them with a large UNIX book .

A good question would be:

"Hello incredibly smart and handsom people of gamedev.net,
I seem to be having trouble with DirectDraw, here is the problem explained thoroughly..."

(yes, that introductory clause is neccasary )

My point is this: "stupid" questions aren''t very annoying, the problem is with people who expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. What acw was getting at is that real programmers know how to do research on their own -- and they don''t expect people to simply do all their work for them.

--TheGoop

If I was a moderator, I''d delete those damned posts. Well, actually, I wouldn''t, but I''d do this: Type up some thorough explanation of exactly where to go as a newbie, save it in Notepad, and the copy and paste it in whenever a newbie asks one of those questions. I did that once, but I lost the .txt file... crappo.

There are three types of people in the world; those who can count, and those who can't.

You know what gets really annoying (and I''m glad I haven''t seen it on these boards yet)? When people in Comp. Science classes in college post asking for help with their homework. I saw that on the Programmer''s Heaven boards quite a bit (in fact, it was most of what was posted). The funny part was, these were college students, and many of their questions I could answer after about a minute of thinking (and I''m a junior/senior (school year just ended) in high school with less than 6 months of programming experiance under his belt).

BTW, I''m GLAD programming is not just typing. The problem-solving and code design parts are some of the most fun parts! (Then we have stuff like debugging, which runs a close but distant second).

P h a n t a s m
"Through dreams I control mankind."
--Legend

I''m not a newbie hater, just wanted to say. One of the best things about programming is the satisfaction of fine tuning a solution you came up with yourself after a little thought.

I dont know why , but I hate asking for help with my programming or debugging , it makes me feel less of a man . To me its like asking , will some please help me make love to my girlfriend ?

There are only four types of men , RichMan , PoorMan , BeggarMan , Thief........