[Zope] Re: Disgraceful

[Michael R. Bernstein]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 23:25:11 +0100, John Poltorak wrote:
> 
> Some people on this list go out of their way to be helpful, others try
> to make you feel like a dunce, and to be quite honest, you already feel
> like a dunce when you are new to something, especially something as
> complex and and secret as Zope, you don't need people giving unhelpful
> advice like RTFM.

On one level, RTFM is manifestly unhelpful, as it doesn't answer your
question.

On another level, RTFM is *very* helpful, as the person telling you that
has some reason to beleive that you in fact didn't RTFM (probably because
you would have said so if you had), and so is trying to get you to improve
your problem solving skills. This is preferable to simply being ignored,
IMO. Because, after all, perhaps you really didn't know that there was a
FMTR. ;-)

BTW, I've noticed over the years that when someone gets an RTFM answer, it
is extremely rare for them to reply that they had already done so. I
was actually one of those rare cases, and after I explained why TFM in
question was an inadequate resource for me, it was improved. What I should
have done was include that piece of information in my original question,
which would have kept the S/N higher.

> After several attempts at getting started with Zope over a number of
> months, I'm still far from having a good overview of how it hangs
> together. The hostility of some responses makes me extremely reluctant
> to ask for help [snip].

No need to be apprehensive, just follow these guidelines, and you'll be
fine: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

It comes down to a good-faith demonstration that you treat other people's
time as valuable.

-- Michael Bernstein