things ain't what they used to be

[hundrup]

I have been visiting this forum for some years now - usually at this time of year when it's time to teach PHP again.

I note a worrying number of postings from people who don't seem to realise that there is documentation.

As an educationalist I want to encourage and support but the noise level has made the forums pretty hopeles for folk with 'real' questions.

I guess that this was bound to happen once the windoze people started to join in the game ;)
(oops is my cynicism showing?)

The most popular question at the moment has to be the old register globals issue - maybe the site could host some FAQ's to answer such questions?

Some guidelines on how to ask questions, which forum to post to, a general 'have you read the documentation first?' message may help to improve the signal to noise ratio.

whaddayareckon?

[BuzzLY]

More than likely, as users are more and more familiar with PHP, more of the questions they encounter on this site seem very basic to them. Yes, people should read the documentation. But I submit that most questions posted are not those that are easily answered in the documentation.

Sure, with a thorough understanding of all the principles in the documentation one should be able to deduce why they have to use $_GET[] in order to retrieve their variables, but there are plenty of new PHP users that just are not that familiar. There is no documentation that actually states "if your variables aren't working correctly, check register_globals," at least as far as I know. I, too, am a PHP newbie, and if there IS such a statement in the documentation, I have not yet run across it, and I have looked. I know now all about register_globals, from the documentation, and from explanations here in the forums.

I do, however, wholly support your suggestion regarding FAQs. As they are not readily available now, perhaps you should contribute some info to that end?

As for your comment about "windoze people joining the game," since when is that a bad thing? If PHP is being made available to more people, and more people are beginning to use it, please forgive my incredulity if I don't understand why you wouldn't be HAPPY about that. PHP is a good language. It's very comprehensive, not too difficult to learn, and free. Why SHOULDN'T we be getting an influx of people using it?

As an educator, perhaps you should learn from other educators and help teach people, rather than complain about the number of people asking for help. For someone that visits this form for "some years," you have an awful few number of posts. I shouldn't think you have room to complain about the forums' content unless you have been contributing yourself, don't you think?

Personally, as a PHP newbie, I have gleaned a lot of helpful information from these forums, and hope to continue to do so for some time.

[Shadeless]

i'm new to php, and mostly start to work from existing scripts to learn the how and why. I'm bad at php, but i like it, because of what it can do.

Perhaps some of the questions i ask are stupid to u, or simmilar to other questions. But i always look, and search for something simmilar wich could help me, befor i post.. and that is after i spended the nessercary hours of trying to fix it myself.

Often the problems i encounter are the most simple things like overseeing a ; or " or just a word like LIKE...(hihi) But heck that is the reason why i always post my questions in the newbie forum
:D

Anywayz i agree, that things of posting could be improved alot.

For example if u look at title's like NEED HELP!!! or NEED HELP FAST!!! or NEED HELP QUICK.. or ???????

and of course the numurous posts wich a newbie even can see is the same as that other thread in an other part of the forum.. for example the dozen of PHP editor questions(all go about alternative for a php editor)

But a faq won't help us with those things, neither will rules do, because most of the people who post in that way won't read the rules.

Also you have to keep in mind that not everyone is as skilled in english as you are. Not everyone has english as the native language, or are good at languages or had the possibility of good education in english. And since the technology also increased in alot of other countries, in past few years as u mentioned, u can exspect an increasement of all kinds of people who post here. As long we just help those people to learn how they can use these kind of boards in their best way, it shouldn't be much of a problem at all. What do i mean with that... the board has grown.. with that different ages, and language lvl's.

correct me... if necessary

[BuzzLY]

I do agree that there are some things that board newbies do that can be a bit irritating at times. Yes, if there are 15 different threads about the same topic, that can get annoying. I run a Spider-Man board, and you don't know how many times someone asked in a new thread "What's the name of the song in the first trailer?" (It's Leave You Far Behind, by Lunatic Calm -- I know one of you smartalecs is going to ask LOL).

Most of the time, a quick link to an existing thread, or a polite "That question has already been answered -- please check other threads" will suffice. If we are to correct newbie mistakes, calling them f***ing idiots is usually not the best way. Part of the responsibility of being a guru is patience.

That said, perhaps board guidelines should be posted and made sticky in the Newbie forum. If someone violates netiquette, we can just point them to the guideline thread to help educate them.

We all know there are different knowledge and skill levels in almost any field. That is why the words "expert," "guru," and "newbie" exist. As long as we are tolerant of those beneath us and not worthy to lick our boots :D , then this board will be a thriving, enjoyable place to come and share valuable information!

[Shadeless]

i am one of those non guru, non expert full time big time NEWBIE.... :(

but what i lack in php skills, i ty to make up by answering the things i do know..

i'm trainee currently, and have lotsa time to do so.. :D

[karlitosphere]

AMEN to that.. i've only been exposed to PHP for less than two weeks but i'm proud to have caught the tide with the help of PHP and MySQL docu's..

then again, nothing beats a good "20 Questions" on forums.. no matter how silly the topics are..

[Angus]

Just my personal experience.

I bought 5 books from Amazon.com 3 months ago to use to learn PHP - covering all different areas from beginner to advanced.

I have a VERY good undertanding of how to build various types of sites and applications now.

HOWEVER... not ONE book mentioned $_GET or $_POST etc.... which annoys me no end as these are pretty fundamental... Not one of them mentioned that the settings controlling how variables are passed from form to form is now set to OFF by default on new versions of PHP.

I understand how to use $_GET and $_POST now - having read the online PHP manual - but perhaps others are in the same situation - where they have indeed tried to do the right thing and learn via books or other online resources - but missed out on these newly introduced super globals (if thats the right name).

If I hadnt come across the various posts on this forum mentioning them, I too would probably be scratching my head wondering why my scripts wouldnt pass form data.

Setting such core functionality to off whereas all previous versions had it on by default is something pretty easy to miss - especially if you are new...

Its also hard to use the search form to look for something you dont know exists...

I agree a basic FAQ of "Things to look out for" when scripting would be useful - especially when version changes occur...

[ednark]

sorry for being long..

it very important to personalize attention though... if someone is having trouble getting over the hump on a problem... it may not work to read someone elses post and someone elses line of thinking, or to read a dry function description... especially when it comes to applications of function and not the functions themselves... when and where to use a function is just as important as how

sometimes the same explaination in a slightly differnet way or tone will help the person understand... and if the answer to thier question is personalized, it has much more potential to help... so i think the world can tolerate a new $_GET question every 50 postings.....

also there is a big problem with knowing what SHOULD be done... sometimes you just want to know from a person directly if that function you are looking at should or shouldn't be used... or if you are on the right path at all or if someone already invented the wheel your working on...

i wouldn't mind a guru-faq section.. where collaborative faqs can be compiled and updated by the mwembers about certain subjects.... kinda like what the articles are for... but at a more basic level... and geared towards common mistakes and misuses

[adrian_quah]

I've been exposed to PHP abt a year back, and this forum is where i learnt a lot...I particularly liked the environment here where the ppl are friendly n very very helpful mostly..

This is the human part of the forum that makes PHP learning fun n coding less tedious ;)

Thanks to so many who've made this forum a place where PHP thrives..Complaints abt newbies posting obvious questions...hmm, reality is there are lots of ppl from diff backgrounds n experience. Thanks so far cos the forum is a plce where I and anyone else can ask a question without being shy or pushed away.

Great work, great forum :)