[Zope] Re: Disgraceful

[Ken Manheimer]

"Tiller, Michael (M.M.)" <mtiller at ford.com> writes (i'm excerpting out of
order):

> In my opinion, the level or arrogance and stubbornness to help on the
> part of some people on this mailing list is really disgraceful and I
> can't believe others on this list don't feel the same way.

I recommend that everyone cool down here.

You accuse "arrogance and stubborness" about refusing to help against
someone who has provided not just valuable answers, but also much software
on which the questioners rely.  In this particular case, andreas *had*
provided an answer, but it wasn't to the questioners liking!  That was when
andreas spouted that the questioner should look at the API.

> This is such a bunch of bullshit.  I am so tired of "the answer is out
> there somewhere, why can't you find it yourself?" being the

I have to agree that knowing *where* to look for stuff can be hard.  Maybe
indicating where to look is the extra step andreas could have taken to
provide guidance - but the questioner was using the software, presumably
they knew where to look for the API.

> Please explain to me why the mailing list should be a
> solution-of-last-result???  After all, you can find the solution to

This is a fundamental issue in programming.  It's about "teaching someone
to fish, rather than giving them a fish to eat".  There is a balance to be
struck - questions are not forbidden (hence the list, in the first place!).
Jonathon hobbes chimed in, objecting to people using the list as
'solution-of-first-resort' - some evidence of due diligence on the part of
the questioner is necessary so that the answerers know the questioners are
doing what they can to "learn to fish".

I don't follow this group often, so don't know whether this suggestion is
necessary, but i would always like to see answers that include pointers to
key resources where the answers were found, and "RTFM" responses that give
clues about where those resources are.  But list-as-first-resort does *not*
scale.

Ken Manheimer
klm at zope.com

Just to try to avoid unintended distortion due to picking my excerpts out
of order, here's the entire message to which i'm responding:

"Tiller, Michael (M.M.)" <mtiller at ford.com> 

> <rant>
> This is such a bunch of bullshit.  I am so tired of "the answer is out
> there somewhere, why can't you find it yourself?" being the
> justification for not helping people who ask reasonable questions.  To
> add insult to injury Asad was being quite courteous (e.g. he went so far
> as to thank you for your initial response) and you guys just start
> jumping all over him.
> 
> Please explain to me why the mailing list should be a
> solution-of-last-result???  After all, you can find the solution to
> every question by looking at the Zope source code...ergo, all questions
> to the mailing list are a waste of time because the person didn't have
> the time to go picking through the source code?
> 
> Personally, I am more than happy to help people with questions if I know
> the answer off the top of my head.
> 
> ***What is the big deal?!?***
> 
> Just because the answer exists somewhere doesn't mean I expect people to
> spend lots of their time (**which is valuable too by the way**) to go
> digging it out.  Zope (and Plone) are very complicated systems and not
> all of us hack the source code to Zope on a daily basis so we don't know
> all the "ins and outs". If you consider it a waste of your time to
> answer our questions then DON'T, but there is no need to insult us.
> 
> I don't know if you noticed but they don't exactly have the mindshare or
> marketshare of other solutions and I don't think that is likely to
> change when people come here looking for answers and get nothing but
> grief.  I've said it many times before...if you can't be constructive
> just don't say anything.  You are poisoning this community with this
> nonsense.
> 
> In my opinion, the level or arrogance and stubbornness to help on the
> part of some people on this mailing list is really disgraceful and I
> can't believe others on this list don't feel the same way.
> </rant>