[google]

Google is your friend.

I realize that in many cases people asking questions don't know enough about the subject to know what search words to use to find the information they seek, but that isn't most of the time. Most of the time people ask because it's easier for them to ask than to search for the answer themselves and I find that intellectually lazy. Many times here at gamedev I've taken the verbatim question someone has asked, plugged it into google and found the answer in the first set of results. If people are turned off by being told to "google it" oh well, too bad, that's the price they have to pay. It's better response than "rtfm" or similar retorts. I think that a search engine should be the first source to turn to and if that fails then ask for help.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
[google]

Google is your friend.

I realize that in many cases people asking questions don't know enough about the subject to know what search words to use to find the information they seek, but that isn't most of the time. Most of the time people ask because it's easier for them to ask than to search for the answer themselves and I find that intellectually lazy. Many times here at gamedev I've taken the verbatim question someone has asked, plugged it into google and found the answer in the first set of results. If people are turned off by being told to "google it" oh well, too bad, that's the price they have to pay. It's better response than "rtfm" or similar retorts. I think that a search engine should be the first source to turn to and if that fails then ask for help.

Oh don't get me wrong. I love google. I do. I want to clear that misconception up immediately.

I agree that it should be your first choice when information hunting. I guess my curiosity was why people more often choose to respond in a more smug manner when I suspect that in a scenario outside of the internet, this wouldn't be the case.

I tend to use the "2 by 5" method for Google and Forum posts.

5 different intelligent attempts at phrases for Google.
5 Pages of results without anything looking relevant.

Often times simply asking a community of knowledgeable people a simple question about where to find relevant resources is the best way to keep things rolling. Because lets face it, there is a Lot of bad information on some topics out there, and sorting the gold from the dung isn't easy when you don't know what you're really looking for.

However I do agree that if you're simply going to tell someone to 'google it', your time is likely better spent replying to other topics.

When I first started using internet, it was through Netscape 1.0 (blink tag and all that), FidoNet (heh), Gopher (really) and Usenet (now mostly Google Groups).

Usenet was fun. Lots of smart people hanging out daily. Like Linus and his contemporaries.

Of course, if you said any nonsense there, just getting a RTFM response was considered getting off easy. And this wasn't even a direct communication, a bunch of these people would just happen to be in same group and pop into random topical conversation.

So you learned fast, because you had to. And you made sure to ask good questions next time.

Usenet ended in September anyway... The date might be a bit drastic, since I know Usenet was still a good place to be in ~96 or so, even if technically I belonged to September noobs then.

Perhaps it was also that technical parts of Usenet were impacted immediately by AOL.

So it goes both ways, at very least in technical circles, let alone programming, Google should be the first step, something which certain type of questions shows definitely was not - just copy pasting the question yields first hit on Google.


And reminiscening about downloading Usenet headers and downloading Linux 2.0 over 14.4 modem just made me depressed. And feel old...

Quote: Original post by jpetrie
I'm not really clear on what the purpose of this thread is.

Just google it...

Quote:
And reminiscening about downloading Usenet headers and downloading Linux 2.0 over 14.4 modem just made me depressed. And feel old...

We are the last generation to grow up doing school papers without the assistance of the internet.

Quote: Original post by M2tM
We are the last generation to grow up doing school papers without the assistance of the internet.

Don't say such depressing things that make me feel my age :-(

Generally speaking, I don't reply with "google it". Rather, if it's really simple, I post the first two or three relevant links from Google and direct the person to Google for the rest. But if it's really mind-numbing beyond redemption, I might stoop to linking this. :D

It's already been said, but it's exceedingly rude to the community at large to post a very basic question without even making an effort to think about trying to find a solution yourself first. Trying and failing is ok. The community will help. Not trying implies a kind of entitlement mentality that seems to be prevalent today, something like "just give me the answer on the silver platter, don't make me think or anything complicated like that". Answering such questions actually hurts the person who asked, since they won't learn anything and will repeat the same mistakes next time.

I don't know what CandleJack's experiences have been like (presumably it's not something that affected him personally), but the folks here at GameDev really have infinite patience and kindness if you consider what kind of questions come up every hour. It's a pretty friendly community.

Quote: Original post by lightbringer
I don't know what CandleJack's experiences have been like (presumably it's not something that affected him personally), but the folks here at GameDev really have infinite patience and kindness if you consider what kind of questions come up every hour. It's a pretty friendly community.

Oh yes I agree, this community is very helpful and awesome. As I said, this was not related to the gamedev community, just something that I see all over the internet.

And I do agree with most of the things people have said here, like how people should Google first and whatnot. It just seems to me like "google it" has become a knee-jerk response, and occurs in scenarios where really I don't think it's appropriate.

Quote: Original post by CandleJack
Oh don't get me wrong. I love google. I do. I want to clear that misconception up immediately.

I agree that it should be your first choice when information hunting. I guess my curiosity was why people more often choose to respond in a more smug manner when I suspect that in a scenario outside of the internet, this wouldn't be the case.

In person you're usually dealing with friends, family, or coworkers which I'm more inclined to help -- and they're less likely to abuse my good will with a stream of inane questions asked out of pure laziness. Part of that is having to walk / track me down to talk to me in person, so that cuts down on the "lol what's 1+1?"

In person you're also not dealing with ban evading twits who keep repeating the same damn question of the exact same group of people when they don't get an answer the first time. Well, usually [lol].

I'm in the opposite corner. There have been many times when I would ask a question in #gamedev, and get a sense either during or after asking it that I would probably tell myself to just google it, and indeed many times where I could have.

People usually answer helpfully anyway (unless it's inane babble, to which I am certainly prone), and if they tell me to google it, it's all good because I probably impulsively asked before googling it anyway.

I think it might be a combination of the old-style of obtaining information (ask someone knowledgeable), and new-style immediacy of communication. (I can ask a lot of people really quickly.) And, of course, relying on this 100% will not get one very far when one needs to rely on one's self.