[xclite]

Article here. The author discusses what is a common (and prohibited) method of asking for help - "Give me the code."

[stayscrisp]

Nice! this URL links to the post www.whathaveyoutried.com. Macro anyone?

[Shane Hudson]

I read a lot, but this article is TL;DR.. especially for beginners who seem to read zilch! I might go through later and turn into bullet points.

[jon.kiparsky]

Shane Hudson, on 17 February 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

I read a lot, but this article is TL;DR.. especially for beginners who seem to read zilch! I might go through later and turn into bullet points.

Bullet points? Feh. If they're too lazy to read 2K words, they're too lazy to bother with. Someone who can't read a short, well-written essay is never going to do anything useful, period. They might as well go play games, and stop bothering serious people.

I do think I'll be linking to this, although I still think esr's Smart Questions essay is required reading.

Hmm... everyone likes badges around here. Maybe we should offer a "required reading" badge for people who have read (ie, found a buried link towards the end of) some collection of good articles.

[BenignDesign]

Quote

Here’s a secret: willingness and desire to learn are the true qualifications.

Not ability; we all have differing innate and developed levels of ability to acquire certain skills. Some (probably most) of these can be improved with practice, and some can’t - and it’s wrong to pigeonhole or generalise a person’s ability in an entire discipline just because of their seeming difficulty in one particular aspect of that discipline. But if you want someone to spend time and effort (especially if it’s time they’re giving freely), then you’d better earn it.

</article>

[Apokio]

Good read. It brings me back to when I really decided I wanted to really learn programming and try to make a career of it. I found this site and have stuck with it. I don't ask too many questions and when I do I try to give a good background of what I have tried and what resources I have looked at. Heck, most of the time it is a stupid I have overlooked and just needed to write it out to get a understanding. Now, I come to this site for help and to give help where I feel like I have the right answer. You know, returning the favor. I can pretty much solve most of my problems myself because now I know where to look and what to look for.

I think many of the "gimmie the codez" posts come from people who have no clue what it actually takes. When I released my first Android app my brother-in-law came to me and asked if I could make him an app real quick for every phone that worked liked a social networking thing. He had no clue that I just spent the last few months learning just Android and creating this app. Not mention all the other time I have invested in Java. The author is right that people need to try before posting something.

[CTphpnwb]

Heh, I thought everyone was using that link for posts that border on gimme-teh-codez! In fact, I just used it last night.

[jon.kiparsky]

Quote

I don't ask too many questions and when I do I try to give a good background of what I have tried and what resources I have looked at. Heck, most of the time it is a stupid I have overlooked and just needed to write it out to get a understanding

And that's the key to all of this. Writing out exactly what you know about the problem and stating the question clearly is usually the best way to find the facepalm solution that's been staring you in the face.

[AdamSpeight2008]

It is time Mr Rumsfeld?

This post has been edited by AdamSpeight2008: 13 July 2012 - 04:33 PM