Why is so hard to find something useful? I read a couple of forums here and in other sites and ever someone need a kind of help in some, all answers are either vague and/or only a fun in mind of others. Forums are created to people share knowledge, not for a Elite Programmers Group look at it, laugh, and reply with sarcasm that your find it's endless and waste of time.

I dont know what forums you've been frequenting but the people here are pretty helpful and straight forward. though if you're going to make an accusation like that an example might be in order.

Doing research is a very difficult skill. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of thinking to be able to ask good questions, and find good answers. Some people simply naturally take longer to acquire that skill. This may or may not actually be the cause of your problem, but it is certainly the cause of the prolifacy of bad questions and worse answers that make up the bulk of internet forums.

The unfortunate thing is that this leads to a tendency to make lazy responses. When forum regulars see the same questions a dozen times in a week, they get tired of answering them all with the same level of depth and attention. As a result, you'll often see replies from a few people who are too busy, too jaded, or simply can't be bothered to make a hugely detailed reply that solves all of your questions. Beginners especially fall victim to this phenomenon; a lot of novices' questions basically amount to "do my work for me." Nobody wants to do someone else's work for free - we've got our own work to do. Rightly or wrongly, sometimes the most knowledgeable people will give poor answers simply because they have gotten the feeling that they're doing someone else's work, and this doesn't appeal to them. The less obscure your question is, the more likely you are to encounter this; unfortunately, the flip side is that the more obscure your question is, the less likely you are to find someone who can properly answer it.

Another serious problem is that many questions are asked out of laziness. A fair number of people would rather spend 5 minutes posting a question to an internet forum than spend an hour looking up good resources (no, the Internet is not the only resource you need) and doing their own research. In some ways, it is hard to blame people with this attitude; but if you look at it from the perspective of the people who are supposed to answer the questions, it can come across as very inconsiderate and lazy. After reading this kind of question all day, it's only human to get sick of it and quit doing other people's research. The problem is, since doing good research is a difficult skill, this phenomenon will never go away and in some sense is actually an inescapable part of the learning process.

Not knowing anything about your specific case, I honestly have no idea which (if any) of these problems has contributed to your experiences. Just some generic observations on the way internet forums in general tend to operate.


In any case, not to be anal about it, but this doesn't seem to belong in Artificial Intelligence (unless you're writing a homework bot [wink]). Posting things in the most topically relevant forum is often very helpful in getting meaningful feedback. If your questions are relevant, you may even get good results in the For Beginners forum (even if the subject isn't a "beginner" topic) simply because that forum is specifically designed to provide attitude-free answers. Just note that asking questions about multidimensional integration in For Beginners will probably be frowned upon - this falls under the category of posting in the relevant places [wink]

Quote: Original post by DarkThrone
Why is so hard to find something useful? I read a couple of forums here and in other sites and ever someone need a kind of help in some, all answers are either vague and/or only a fun in mind of others. Forums are created to people share knowledge, not for a Elite Programmers Group look at it, laugh, and reply with sarcasm that your find it's endless and waste of time.

Maybe it'd be easier if you said what it was you were looking for, rather than complaining that no one has given you a good answer yet. ;)

I've found tons of useful posts here, usually by searching, but on the few occasions when I've actually asked a question, that's worked pretty well too.
But yes, maybe it is hard to find something useful. That's just because you have so much information to sort through to get what you're looking for. As was said, researching isn't the easiest thing to do.

Are you speaking about artificial intelligence forums or game programming forums? If your complaint is specifically concerning artificial intelligence information (I am assuming this because you posted it here), I would recomend looking to text books and research papers. Suprisingly the AI information on the world wide web is not all that good.

The problem is: Until now, if all of you check on the forums ( all, including all on the net, not only here.) ever that anyone asks for a resource useable, receives reply as "oh, this thing you can do you never can". or "oh, he thinks to any will give the key-for-the-gold". I not asking for a "do-my-work-for-me", I ask simply for any, if can, give me a simple example of how-do-it, as NeHe provides in your site using OpenGL. So, if any can, either post a single piece of code for reference (I don't like and don't want copy the work of others, only understand, how do what I want to do.). Programming is so hard, most yet in a country where don't offer any possibility to learn if you can't VERY dedicated and don't matter if you are a loser one. I am a self-learner, spend almost six months to understand C++. Full potential guys created amazing things in times of BBS and monochromatic screens using knowledge gathered on net. It's the essence. If a forum purposes a help in a community of programmer, nothing but true that they help one by others.

And think, sometimes the Internet is only the acessible resource to someone finds what he/she needs. Books and other things in same line are to expensive in some places and hard to find in others. If someone can have acess to information, he/she can begin to work early and finish it early.

I need to say, it's not a acusation, it's fact. If you check a ANN tutorial, you will find a complex mathematical formula instead a single piece of real code. Theory is good for ones that understand, but many people uses to attempt and fail to learn something and see if is useable or not. If any show only the door, with pratice all learn how go in.

don't take this personally, but i think you are underestimating how much work it is to program something. you need much longer than 6 months to learn C++, other than the basics (unless you are a super genius, of course). and you (allegedly, i haven't gone this way yet) need that math to understand how a neural network works. if you keep working on programming, and learn the math you need, at some point you will understand it and code it yourself, or at least find the perfect question to get the perfect answer to fill in the missing pieces.

patience is the key (i would say google is the key, but you already mentioned that :)

also keep in mind that because of the nature of the internet, anyone can put crap on there, and most of them do. so it is hard work to find the good stuff, even on a website with specific topics.

Quote: Original post by DarkThrone
I not asking for a "do-my-work-for-me", I ask simply for any, if can, give me a simple example of how-do-it, as NeHe provides in your site using OpenGL. So, if any can, either post a single piece of code for reference (I don't like and don't want copy the work of others, only understand, how do what I want to do.).

Ah, I see what you mean now, and yes, you're right. Too many people think "download this engine/library" is the answer to every question.
I find it annoying when I or someone else asks how to do something, or how something works, and people reply with "Just download Boost/Ogre/the DirectX SDK/Python or whatever else.

Yes, I could use Boost's smart pointers, but if the point in my thread was to ask what a smart pointer *is*, then it's not a very helpful suggestion. Unfortunately, I see that happen far too often.

The best you can do is to say *exactly* what it is you want. If you want an explanation, then say that, and make it absolutely clear that you're *not* asking for a link to people's favorite libraries/engines/languages.

Quote: Original post by DarkThrone
I need to say, it's not a acusation, it's fact. If you check a ANN tutorial, you will find a complex mathematical formula instead a single piece of real code. Theory is good for ones that understand, but many people uses to attempt and fail to learn something and see if is useable or not. If any show only the door, with pratice all learn how go in.

The interesting problem posed with just posting code is that what works for one person, may very well not work for someone else. I'm not sure about anything else about game development, but I do know that there aren't many "general purpose" AI stuff. So, for most game oriented AI, its not like you're going to be able to copy and paste someone else's code, or even look at someone else's code and know what you need.

With the ANN example you mentioned, to fully use the ANN, you'll need the mathematical model anyways. Even if you get the sample code, you'll eventually need to reverse engineer it for the mathematical model that you'll need for your own purpose, which is why I think most people only talk about the math. Coding isn't the most important part of game design. Coding is actually the last thing you go into. This is why most of the times, when faced with questions, people tend to give high level answers, which to some may sound vague.

Even if people were to post code snipets, there's no guarantee that their implementation is "useable for you and your purpose, but that does not mean the technique is not relevant to what you need. You may need an ANN, but then there are lots of different implementations of it. You can't very well plow through all the different implementations. Even if you do, you might still just end up with that one simple mathematic formula and concluded, "why didn't they say so in the first place?"

Yes, its nice if people would post code, but in the end, you still need to understand the concepts behind the code to use it properly. So, the question is just whether you like to spend hours on end trying to reverse engineer possibly bad or unreadable code (happens sometimes) or start from scratch based on the fundamentals and maybe spend only half the time.

Ok seems that some of you understand what I want to say, it's good.

Well, first of all, sure that coding it's the last thing to do. Because this, I spend last months both dedicating to research about find exacty I will do to implement the code.

A general purpose code is not the point. Ask for a general purpose code is simply ask to "do-my-work-for-me". I ask for ANY kind of code, since it is AI related. Is as the "toolbox", you never uses all tools, but have ever one to use in a case.

Let me explain exactly what I want:
I was planning a game that is a combination of a date simulator and a action that remember GTA. I have functions to simulate weather, relationship over characters, all the stuff. But one day, I'll think that seems good, if the player can say what he/she wants, instead of uses the same static options, how the "tokimeki memorial" and some kind of genre games uses.

When I look for a ANN/ATN to uses some piece of code modified to what I want to do, I find only a robot simulation, with weights and all.

Well, if the problem is say EXACTLY what i want ( if is hard to figure it... ), I just say it.

On the top, the program haves a stack. When you say anything, it process in the "chatbot module" and throw it on stack. The "emotion module" catches the result, process it, compare with "relationship values" and throw it on the stack. Finally, all values are updated, "chatbot module" catches it and return a response.

But thinks, if you can do it to yourself, or you figure that can think in all points and it result to fail, or you reseach and discover that the human brain is a powerful computer, with a powerful OS, but it's limited as any machine. Because this, groups are created to, how a net of computer, process all possibilities. So if anyone can help, it's be apreciated, proper credit will given, and code was be public to all use as want, also the modificantions I do, to all use to your projects, learns, and colaborates to a creation of a powerful engine (not a ready one, a one that themselves create, stable, without bugs, clear and understandable.) Seems as Utopia, but if all looks to fire and just say "ah, it's dying..." instead of feed it, all die of cold. It's not just to me, I'm sure that lots of begginners, medium level and I must say, until hard programmers that stops in some point out of resources.

Not run out of the topic, the problem is not my program, it's the group. If anyone open a topic as "Let's think in a brain simulation." and share ideas. A discussion group it's the point. Active people share a idea that will can use.
Understand me?