forum help?

[roscor]

I see there are so many reply posts on this forum where members are very helpful and post a suggested line of enquiry or prompt towards the right direction. Quite often a Google search is sufficient or a complete check of this forum will help the avid viewer. What I notice as a regular viewer and quite obvious PHP newbie are the responses that sometimes users/members are given. I am fully aware of the need to complete a full and methodical check prior to submitting a question and that some users/members can occasionally step a little to close to the (write me the code please) mark. but as a forum I feel we should (and some/many members do) help the learning majority. I see as others will do the numbers of viewers on-line looking for that piece of code to just start them off on their PHP adventure. Many replies, are becoming more common place are becoming more and more fixated, that is more (look harder) kind of attitude. My learning curve is very steep and I am still at the start of my PHP adventure. I feel we should sometimes sit back and remember the time when we were not so knowledgeable,

food for thought.

regards and no offence intended

[bpat1434]

I understand the comments made; however, I'm moving it to a more appropriate board :)

[bradgrafelman]

Over time, as my understanding and experience with using PHP increase, I probably fit the same curve as you're describing; I become increasingly critical in my responses with those on the other end of the spectrum.

Though I evaluate the poster's knowledge, frustration level, etc. on a thread-by-thread basis, I still like to think that educating someone is better for me AND that person as opposed to spoonfeeding them code/answers.

Isn't it easier sometimes to just give the person the answer when they can't see it themsleves? Of course!! But who is this really helping? I don't think the 'regulars' come here and post so much just because they need practice at debugging scripts; I'd like to think they, like me, want to educate the programming world in the art of PHP programming and the art of basic troubleshooting, to name a couple. Sometimes forcing the person to work through their errors, following a basic troubleshooting process, seems to be more hassle than it's worth; I've come to realize, however, that the old cliché, "No pain, no gain" is very applicable here.

[roscor]

Well said brad and I do agree with your comments and understand exactly where you are coming from. I hope that I can help others in the future just as members have helped me.

Regards

roscor

[Piranha]

I want to add a few points to this thread. This is solely my own opinions and should be regarded as such.

I don't think that it is possible to know something and at the same time know how it is when you don't know it. As an example I have no idea how it is to not know how to handle a while-loop. I can understand that it is frustrating, but I don't know how it is to not know. Obviously it is hard to explain something that you think is easy.

The best way that we can help out is to help people to help themselfes. Doing their work for them won't work, then they will just ask again next time. And next. And next. Almost every time when you post code the code will just get copy-pasted, I have helped out sometimes by showeing in one example how they could do and think that they will do the same to the rest of the code. But even then (I have done one of 4 if-statements as an example) they just copy that statement. To me that shows that they simply don't want to learn, they want someone else to do it for them. That is not what this forum is about, and those kind of people will get the look harder kind of attitude from me.

Another part is that many persons don't check and do what is suggested. Quite often it is possible that 2-3 persons have posted and one of the solutions work. But the person in need for help don't try out that particular solution, just continue to ask. This shows, once again, that they don't want to solve the problem, they want something else. As stated in my signature I normally won't reply to those persons.

[bpat1434]

I guess I'll chime in... *CHIME* ;)

The opinions expressed in the following text are strictly opinions of the author and not of PHPBuilder, JupiterMedia or anyone or anything else.

When I came to this board, I knew the basics about C++ programming that I learned via Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours. So PHP was really, a new field. I was a huge web-design guy and did many organization designs for free, and a friend of mine asked if I could help him with a PHP script. I agreed to do so, and his issues fueled my fire to learn more about PHP.

I came here, and people like Brad, Weed, Elizabeth, BuzzLY and others took me under their wing, for lack of a better phrase, and showed me how PHP operated. I learned what I needed to get that script working here, but then went to google and used the search feature to find tutorials on PHP scripts. And after spending so much time on the forum here, I got to where I am today.

Now, I know what it's like to be on both ends: Ignorant and Knowledgeable. I hit road-blocks, and find it difficult to sometimes comprehend what's going on, so I google it, then ask questions. But that's just me. Unfortunately what seems to happen is that many users of this forum just come here and straight up ask their question: "Why doesn't this work" or "What does this do"?

Herein lies the problem. With questions like that, we are kind of forced to ask the stupid Tech Support redundancy question: "And your error is?" or "What are you trying to do?" (synonymous with the "Is the monitor plugged in?). And when we ask a simple question like that, some will say "Oh I forgot" and proceed, others will just take it as us being ***holes and leave.

[bpat1434]

Personally, there are two types of people in this world to me: Those that want answers, and those that search for answers. The difference between the two is typically self discipline. The "Those that want answers" (TTWS) will come to a board and find the path of least resistance and ask the questions: "Why doesn't this work", "Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?", "Need Help!!". Sometimes they'll catch a nice person on a good day, and an answer will surface in two or three posts (after they're done bumping it of course) and that will be the end of it. Other times people will ask for more information, or ask them what they've done to get to an answer.

The "Those that search for answers" (TTSA) will come to a board and say something like: "Still having trouble", "I don't understand this", "What's going on?". The difference is, inside their post they point out that they've been to Google, they've searched for answers, they've read the manual, they've searched the board, they've asked their "techy" friends, and they still need help. This proves to us that they are wanting to learn. They're in it for "the long haul" and the way we should help them is to actually guide them along the path.

The issue that comes up more often is distinguishing between two different types of people. On one side, you've got the "Me Me's" with "Help Me", "Get me an answer" who don't search, and don't say anything, OR don't search and lie about it; and on the other you've got the "Workers" who go in search of an answer only to find that they've fallen short, and need help. These people sometimes will say whether they've searched or not. And even then, did they search for the right terms?

[bpat1434]

Personally, I live by the Chinese Proverb:
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, feed him for life.
There's no better way to put it. If answers are freely given to those that do or do-not want to learn, nothing is learned. To me, PHPB is an educational board. It's a place for people that want to learn PHP and get help in other languages to come. It's a place where getting an answer means getting your hands dirty. Nothing has ever come easy. Think about it. If you were just given answers in science class, how would you understand just what makes Trinitrotoluene do what it does (for those that don't want to google, that's TNT (Dynomite)). Almost everything that has come in this world has come through learning experiences, and the dissemination of knowledge from person to person, or from history to person. If we don't learn when we ask questions, how can we avoid the same mistake or error in the future?

To me, this board is about helping people learn the proper habits to code, secure code, debug code, and manage code while having the current population help those that are just beginning. The best way to help someone is to help them LEARN just what was wrong, and how to avoid or pick out the mistakes earlier next time. What good is it if we just keep spoonfeeding answers to people that ask. We are going to breed an ignorant population of coders that for all we know could be releasing our exact code as projects. Those projects then have gaping security holes, and later down the line PHP once again is laying face down in a pool of "Security Issues" that the developers have to fix because coders are too lazy to realize what pseudo-code is and don't want to LEARN, they just want answers.

Personally, if you can't take the 45 seconds to 3 minutes to read up in the manual or on Google on your problem, you don't want to learn, and you should really think about why you're asking the question. Sometimes you just need a shove in the right direction, it happens (Case in point: Me). But that doesn't mean because one person was nice to show you the light, you expect everyone to give you a torch.

Not a sermon, just a thought.