Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners • Hacker News Board

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#21

Post by jchendy » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #8

> Attempt to answer the question, or don’t comment at all. Don’t tell them to RTFM, Google it, No, just no. There is no point to any of all this search technology and this accumulated knowledge if no one uses it. Someone asking a question that is answered in the documentation or has been asked and answered over and over should be pointed at those sources. One of the most important skills anyone is going to learn in a…

> Someone asking a question that is answered in the documentation or has been asked and answered over and over should be pointed at those sources.

I think linking them to a directly-relevant resource like an answered StackOverflow question or a specific documentation page is a totally valid way to answer the question. My impression is that the author of the article is referring to replies that simply state "Google it" without providing any useful links, search terms, etc.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#22

Post by mhurron » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:22 PM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #17

mhurron wrote: post #8

> Attempt to answer the question, or don’t comment at all. Don’t tell them to RTFM, Google it, No, just no. There is no point to any of all this search technology and this accumulated knowledge if no one uses it. Someone asking a question that is answered in the documentation or has been asked and answered over and over should be pointed at those sources. One of the most important skills anyone is going to learn in a…

My approach is to answer the question and then tell them they can find the answers faster in the manual/docs.

The problem with this approach is you make it easier to ask the question than search the documents.

Your doing all the work, they just have to sit back and let someone else do it for them.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#23

Post by denis1 » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

Armisael16 wrote: post #13

crdoconnor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You ask a complex question and they ask you why you're doing it. How is that alienating?

Being dismissed or interrogated for every single question you ask is certainly alienating.

Maybe, but 'why are you doing it?' is a very relevant question. And imo should be the first question to be asked. Knowing why you're trying to achieve something will allow people to provide alternate ideas instead of fixating on the narrow context that you've set.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#24

Post by AndrewUnmuted » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

As a kid, it took me a long time to learn to program because I was constantly fighting the very things that this article brings up. You can chalk it up to youthful arrogance. When I dropped my attitude and realized how wrong I was (around age 17, when many kids finally do this) I finally became a good programmer. I tried for nearly five years as a kid, but my naievete got in the way.

Programming requires a nearly dogmatic adherence to methodology, logic, and best practices, to be done well. What the article describes as unfriendly towards beginners, is really just an attempt to bestow upon beginners a thought process that needs to be instilled to be successful.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#25

Post by mhurron » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #14

mhurron wrote: post #8

> Attempt to answer the question, or don’t comment at all. Don’t tell them to RTFM, Google it, No, just no. There is no point to any of all this search technology and this accumulated knowledge if no one uses it. Someone asking a question that is answered in the documentation or has been asked and answered over and over should be pointed at those sources. One of the most important skills anyone is going to learn in a…

I would say that the real help lies in between. You don't go out of your way to explain something that is explained somewhere else already. But, you can go out of your way to show the person where it is explained or even what to search for. Researching a problem on the internet is a skill that needs to be learned; a meta-skill, if you will. Whenever a developer has told me in the past to RTFM, aside from the rudeness…

> Researching a problem on the internet is a skill that needs to be learned

Which will never be learned if you never have to do it.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#26

Post by gonehome » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

cballard wrote: post #16

froh42 wrote: post #4

I feel StackOverflow is a bad place even as a professional. I don't agree with 90% of "closing" of questions, frequently closing a question is the ultimate upvote. StackOverflow seems to prefer questions that can be answered by just copying the fine manual - and frowns on those that might involve discussion. From time to time I still use it, but for me it has jumped the shark.

I asked a question on a Stack Exchange site (not SO) that was immediately reported as a duplicate. It wasn't , the duplicate wasn't even close in multiple ways, and someone else jumped in to defend the question - he was then upvoted by several people. Despite this, there is a permanent prompt to either accept that the question is a duplicate, or to edit my question and explain why it isn't. This is nonsensical, becau…

Yeah - my experience with the Stack Overflow moderation community has been uniformly negative too, they basically get in the way of the users.

Arbitrarily closing/rewriting questions, removing useful information etc. The site can be useful - but only in spite of the community tasked with running it (not because of them) and it makes it frustrating to use.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#27

Post by diezge » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:24 PM UTC

The problem is a lot of people misinterpret what StackOverflow is supposed to be - a repository of programming-related questions/answers that are useful to more than one person.

Most questions asked these days are duplicates, syntax errors or are answered in the relevant online documentation - I really think there should be online courses on 'How to find the right thing to search for' because it would help newbies so much, and prevent them from having to interact with the mean/rude side of StackOverflow (which is proving hard to get rid of despite all the initiatives).

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#28

Post by lambic » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

Some suggestions for the beginner asking questions:

1. Make it clear that you are a beginner and that you're eagerly learning. Otherwise it's easy for someone to assume that you're a more experienced developer and answer accordingly.

2. Don't ask people to do your homework assignment for you.

And some suggestions for the experienced devs answering the questions:

1. Don't assume that the OPs first language is the language of the forum.

2. Don't assume that the OP is an adult, lots of kids are learning programming these days.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#29

Post by hellofunk » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #25

hellofunk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that the real help lies in between. You don't go out of your way to explain something that is explained somewhere else already. But, you can go out of your way to show the person where it is explained or even what to search for. Researching a problem on the internet is a skill that needs to be learned; a meta-skill, if you will. Whenever a developer has told me in the past to RTFM, aside from the rudeness…

> Researching a problem on the internet is a skill that needs to be learned Which will never be learned if you never have to do it.

I disagree. You can definitely be helped to learn how to do this. It is possible to show someone the technique of properly researching a difficult technical problem.

Re: Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners

#30

Post by froh42 » Wed, Feb 10, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #9

collyw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you go to for answers? I hate the over zealous moderators, but it does end up answering a lot of my programming related questions.

I'm not GP, but I often still go there via Google searches that turn up questions, and then discover that a useful question with a great answer has been closed as off-topic to the programming forum. 90% of the time it seems like a legitimate programming question.

Yes, I turn to google as well. That's what over 30 years of development experience give you: You know how to use google to turn up the correct answers. And as I use Java for a living - there's a great decompiler in my IDE. Use the source, Luke.

By the way, showing a talented beginner where good documentation is - I think that's frequently the best way to help them along.